Frequent Truth: Impact of Frequency of Misinformation Correction in Extended Extreme Events

Abstract

Misinformation management is a growing area of concern in Online Social Network (OSN) organizations. There are several behavioral interventions employed to address misinformation in OSN's. One example is offering users correction when they have engaged with fake news. However, there is little research quantifying the effectiveness of such interventions. We conducted a laboratory experiment to test whether experiencing corrective feedback improved peoples' ability to discriminate true and false news claims during extended extreme events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in the experiment were randomly assigned to four different experiment conditions. Depending on the condition assigned, participants received varying amount of corrective feedback. Results from this experiment suggests that increasing frequency of corrective feedback may not affect peoples' ability to correctly assess information (or misinformation). Political ideology and mistrust in fact-checking organization were found to be the most significant contributing factors. We discuss implications of the findings from this experiment.