Abstract

Many are concerned with the proliferation of false information on social media. This article explores whether “social norm-based nudges” can help address this issue by changing the sharing behaviour of social media users. In order to do so, we conduct an online survey experiment (n = 1,003), where participants are randomly exposed to a social norm-based message while choosing to read and/or share a false news article. The message warns participants that there is an abundance of “false information” online and tells them that most responsible people think twice before sharing articles with their network. Our analysis finds that the nudge reduced the proportion of people willing to share the article by 5.1 percentage points, with a 46.7% increase in the proportion of respondents stating that they do not want to share the article because it is false or inaccurate.

摘要

许多人担心社交媒体上虚假信息的泛滥。本文探讨了“基于社会规范的推动力”是否可以通过更改社交媒体用户的共享行为来帮助解决此问题。为此，我们进行了在线调查实验（n = 1,003），其中参与者在选择阅读和/或分享虚假新闻时会随机接触基于社会规范的消息。该消息警告参与者在线上存在大量“虚假信息”，并告诉他们大多数负责任的人在与网络共享文章之前要三思而后行。我们的分析发现，微调使愿意分享文章的人比例减少了5.1个百分点，表示不愿意分享文章是因为虚假或不正确的受访者比例增加了46.7％。