The Effect of Anonymity in Social Media on Fake News Sharing

Joakim Janson () and Emma von Essen ()
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Joakim Janson: Linnaeus University and, Postal: Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://www.ifn.se/en/researchers/affiliated-researchers/joakim-jansson/
Emma von Essen: Department of Sociology, Uppsala University

No 1566, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: We study how anonymity affects fake-news sharing on social media using a natural experiment on Flashback, a large Swedish online discussion forum. In 2014, journalists obtained information that allowed them to identify users registered before March 2007, sharply increasing these users’ risk of public exposure while leaving later registrants unaffected. Using a difference-in-differences design on 1.98 million posts, we find that exposed users reduce references to fake-news sites by about one-quarter of the mean. The effect is concentrated in immigration and domestic-politics discussions and does not extend to legitimate news sources, suggesting that accountability reduces misinformation without reducing news sharing more broadly.

Keywords: Online; Anonymity; Text data; Fake news; Machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D80 D83 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2026-09-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1566

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