Combating Misinformation by Sharing the Truth: a Study on the Spread of Fact-Checks on Social Media

Jiexun Li () and Xiaohui Chang
Additional contact information
Jiexun Li: Western Washington University
Xiaohui Chang: Oregon State University

Information Systems Frontiers, 2023, vol. 25, issue 4, No 11, 1479-1493

Abstract: Abstract Misinformation on social media has become a horrendous problem in our society. Fact-checks on information often fall behind the diffusion of misinformation, which can lead to negative impacts on society. This research studies how different factors may affect the spread of fact-checks over the internet. We collected a dataset of fact-checks in a six-month period and analyzed how they spread on Twitter. The spread of fact-checks is measured by the total retweet count. The factors/variables include the truthfulness rating, topic of information, source credibility, etc. The research identifies truthfulness rating as a significant factor: conclusive fact-checks (either true or false) tend to be shared more than others. In addition, the source credibility, political leaning, and the sharing count also affect the spread of fact-checks. The findings of this research provide practical insights into accelerating the spread of the truth in the battle against misinformation online.

Keywords: Social media; Information sharing; Misinformation; Credibility; Fact-check; Data analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10796-022-10296-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:infosf:v:25:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10796-022-10296-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10796

DOI: 10.1007/s10796-022-10296-z

Access Statistics for this article

Information Systems Frontiers is currently edited by Ram Ramesh and Raghav Rao

More articles in Information Systems Frontiers from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().