Abstract
The proliferation of misinformation on social media has been a growing issue over the past years with severe consequences. Prior research suggests that a primary reason behind low truth discernment is the lack of effort put into evaluating accuracy and this may in turn lead to sharing of misinformation. However, studies looking into how users can be motivated to focus on accuracy are limited. An online experiment was carried out to investigate if attention can be drawn towards accuracy through social feedback regarding shared misinformation. The results indicate instead of improving truth discernment, users became more sceptical after receiving feedback. Further, subsequent sharing behaviour did not change. These findings suggest that inadvertently sharing misinformation and being corrected may make the distinction between truth and misinformation more ambiguous rather than improve truth discernment. This research in progress paper also discusses future research based on the findings of the current study.
Recommended Citation
Vithanage, Sameera; Mendoza, Antonette; Ransom, Keith; and Karunasekera, Shanika, "Towards Better Truth Discernment on Social Media" (2023). ACIS 2023 Proceedings. 17.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2023/17