The flagging of false news has been one of the ways suggested to discourage people from sharing deceiving news stories on social media, and recent years have seen a growing number of initiatives focused on providing credibility labels for news online. Using an experimental design, this study assesses the effectiveness of such labels designed to reduce the sharing of false news. Specifically, it examines the impact of warning labels on Facebook users’ intentions to share false news stories, drawing on a sample of 501 participants from across the political spectrum. The study also explores users’ perceptions of the likelihood that other people would share false news even after seeing a warning label. We find that the flagging of false news may indeed have an effect on reducing false news sharing intentions by diminishing the credibility of misleading information. Furthermore, we find that users may be prone to believing that others are more likely to share false news than themselves, confirming the third‐person effect. This study shows that flagging of false news on social media platforms like Facebook may indeed help the current efforts to combat sharing of deceiving information on social media.

中文翻译：

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清理社交媒体：警告标签对在Facebook上分享虚假新闻的可能性的影响

标记虚假新闻已成为建议阻止人们在社交媒体上共享欺骗性新闻故事的一种方式，近年来，越来越多的举措致力于为在线新闻提供可信度标签。通过实验设计，本研究评估了旨在减少虚假新闻共享的此类标签的有效性。具体来说，它以来自各个政治领域的501名参与者为样本，研究了警告标签对Facebook用户分享虚假新闻故事的意图的影响。该研究还探讨了用户对即使看到警告标签后其他人也会共享虚假消息的可能性的看法。我们发现，对虚假新闻的标记可能确实会通过减少误导性信息的可信度而对减少虚假新闻的共享意图产生影响。此外，我们发现用户可能倾向于相信他人比他们自己更容易分享虚假新闻，从而证实了第三人称效果。这项研究表明，在诸如Facebook这样的社交媒体平台上标记虚假新闻确实可以帮助当前打击在社交媒体上共享欺骗性信息的工作。