Across two studies, we test two of Facebook’s attempts to fight misinformation: labeling misinformation as disputed or false and including fact checks as related articles. We propose hypotheses based on a two-step model of motivated reasoning, which provides insight into how misinformation is corrected. For study 1 (n = 1,262) and study 2 (n = 1,586), we created a mock Facebook News Feed consisting of five different articles—four were actual news stories and the fifth was misinformation. Both studies tested (a) the effect of misinformation without correction, (b) Facebook’s changes to its platform, and (c) an alternative we theorized could be more effective. The findings, in line with the two-step model of motivated reasoning, provide evidence of symmetric party effects for the belief in misinformation. In both studies, we find partisan differences in responses to fact checking. We find modest evidence that our improvements to Facebook’s attempts at correcting misinformation reduce misperceptions across partisan divides.
AllcottHGentzkowM (2017) Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives31: 211–236.
2.
BakshyEMessingSAdamicLA (2015) Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science348: 1130–1132.
3.
BenegalSDScruggsLA (2018) Correcting misinformation about climate change: the impact of partisanship in an experimental setting. Climactic Change148: 61–80.
4.
BerinskyAJ (2017) Rumors and health care reform: experiments in political misinformation. British Journal of Political Science47: 241–262.
5.
BodeLVragaEK (2015) In related news, that was wrong: the correction of misinformation through related stories functionality in social media. Journal of Communication65: 619–638.
6.
BodeLVragaEK (2018) See something, say something: correction of global health misinformation on social media. Health Communication33(9): 1131–1140.
ClaytonKBlairSBusamJA, et al. (2019) Real solutions for fake news? Measuring the effectiveness of general warnings and fact-check tags in reducing belief in false stories on social media. Political Behavior42: 1073–1095.
9.
Del VicarioMBessiAZolloF, et al. (2016) The spreading of misinformation online. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences113: 554–559.
FlynnDJNyhanBReiflerJ (2017) The nature and origins of misperceptions: understanding false and unsupported beliefs about politics. Advances in Political Psychology38: 127–150.
12.
FreelonDWellsC (2020) Disinformation as political communication. Political Communication37(2): 145–156.
13.
FridkinKKenneyPJWintersieckA (2015) Liar, liar, pants on fire: how fact-checking influences citizens’ reactions to negative advertising. Political Communication32: 127–151.
14.
GainesBJKuklinskiJHQuirkPJ, et al. (2007) Same facts, different interpretations: Partisan motivation and opinion on Iraq. The Journal of Politics69(4): 957–974.
15.
GarrettRKPoulsenS (2019) Flagging Facebook falsehoods: self-identified humor warnings outperform fact checker and peer warnings. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication24(5): 240–258.
16.
GarrettRKWeeksBE (2013) The promise and peril of real-time corrections to political misperceptions. In: Proceedings of the 2013 conference on computer supported cooperative work, San Antonio, TX, 23–27 February 2013, pp. 1047–1058. New York: ACM.
17.
GarrettRKNisbetECLynchEK (2013) Undermining the corrective effects of media-based political fact checking? The role of contextual cues and naïve theory. Journal of Communication63(4): 617–637.
18.
GravesL (2016) Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-checking in American Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
19.
GroelingT (2010) When Politicians Attack: Party Cohesion in the Media. New York: Cambridge University Press.
20.
GuessANaglerJTuckerJ (2019) Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook. Science Advances5(1): eaau4586.
21.
HameleersMvan der MeerTG (2019) Misinformation and polarization in a high-choice media environment: how effective are political fact-checkers?Communication Research47(2): 227–250.
22.
HillSJ (2017) Learning together slowly: Bayesian learning about political facts. The Journal of Politics79: 1403–1418.
JostJTvan der LindenSPanagopoulosC, et al. (2018) Ideological asymmetries in conformity, desire for shared reality, and the spread of misinformation. Current Opinion in Psychology23: 77–83.
25.
KahanDM (2013) Ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection: an experimental study. Judgment and Decision Making8: 407–424.
26.
KlarS (2014) Identity and engagement among political independents in America. Political Psychology35(4): 577–591.
27.
KuklinskiJHQuirkPJJeritJ, et al. (2000) Misinformation and the currency of democratic citizenship. Journal of Politics62: 790–816.
28.
KundaZ (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin108: 480–498.
29.
LordCGRossLLepperMR (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: the effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology37(11): 2098–2109.
NisbetECCooperKEGarrettRK (2015) The partisan brain: how dissonant science messages lead conservatives and liberals to (dis)trust science. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science658(1): 36–66.
33.
NyhanBReiflerJ (2010) When corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior32(2): 303–330.
NyhanBPorterEReiflerJ, et al. (2019) Taking fact-checks literally but not seriously? The effects of journalistic fact-checking on factual beliefs and candidate favorability. Political Behavior42: 939–960.
36.
NyhanBReiflerJRicheyS, et al. (2014) Effective messages in vaccine promotion: a randomized trial. Pediatrics133: e835–e842.
PennycookGBearACollinsE, et al. (2020) The implied truth effect: attaching warnings to a subset of fake news stories increases perceived accuracy of stories without warnings. Management Science25: 388–402.
ShinJThorsonK (2017) Partisan selective sharing: the biased diffusion of fact-checking messages on social media. Journal of Communication67: 233–255.
41.
TaberCSLodgeM (2006) Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science50(3): 755–769.
42.
TaberCSCannDKucsovaS (2009) The motivated processing of political arguments. Political Behavior31(2): 137–155.
43.
ThorsonE (2016) Belief echoes: the persistent effects of corrected misinformation. Political Communication33(3): 460–480.
44.
VragaEKBodeL (2017) Using expert sources to correct health misinformation in social media. Science Communication39: 621–645.
45.
VragaEKBodeL (2018) I do not believe you: how providing a source corrects health misperceptions across social media platforms. Information Communication & Society21: 1337–1353.
46.
WalterNCohenJHolbertRL, et al. (2019) Fact-checking: a meta-analysis of what works and for whom. Political Communication37(3): 350–375.
47.
WeeksB (2015) Emotions, partisanship, and misperceptions: how anger and anxiety moderate the effect of partisan bias on susceptibility to political misinformation. Journal of Communication65(4): 699–719.
48.
WeeksBGarrettRK (2014) Electoral consequences of political rumors: motivated reasoning, candidate rumors, and vote choice during the 2008 presidential election. International Journal of Public Opinion Research26: 401–422.
49.
WoodTPorterE (2019) The elusive backfire effect: mass attitudes’ steadfast factual adherence. Political Behavior41(1): 135–163.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
