Curtailing False News, Amplifying Truth

Emeric Henry, Sergei Guriev, Marquis, Théo and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya

No 18650, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We develop a comprehensive framework to assess policy measures aimed at curbing false news dissemination on social media. A randomized experiment on Twitter during the 2022 U.S. mid-term elections evaluates such policies as priming the awareness of misinformation, fact-checking, confirmation clicks, and prompting careful consideration of content. Priming is the most effective policy in reducing sharing of false news while increasing sharing of true content. A model of sharing decisions, motivated by persuasion, partisan signaling, and reputation concerns, predicts that policies affect sharing through three channels: (i) updating perceived veracity and partisanship of content, (ii) raising the salience of reputation, and (iii) increasing sharing frictions. Structural estimation shows that all policies impact sharing via the salience of reputation and cost of friction. Affecting perceived veracity plays a negligible role as a mechanism in all policies, including fact-checking. The priming intervention performs best in enhancing reputation salience with minimal added friction.

Keywords: Social media; Anti-misinformation policies; Twitter; Priming; Salience; Fake news (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18650 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Curtailing False News, Amplifying Truth (2023)
Working Paper: Curtailing False News, Amplifying Truth (2023)
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:cpr:ceprdp:18650

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18650

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().