ABSTRACT

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied with a pandemic of fake news spreading over social media (SM). Fact checking might help combat fake news and a plethora of fact-checking platforms exist, yet few people actually use them. Moreover, whether fact checking is effective in preventing citizens from falling for fake news, particularly COVID-19 related, is unclear. Against this backdrop, we examine potential antecedents to fact checking that can be a target for interventions and establish that fact checking is actually effective for preventing the public from falling for harmful COVID-19 fake news. We use a representative U.S. sample collected in April of 2020 and find that awareness of fake news and patterns of active SM use (e.g., commenting on content instead of reading it) increases the fact checking of COVID-19 fake news, whereas SM homophily reduces fact checking and the effects of SM use as users are trapped in “echo chambers”. We also find that fact checking helps users identify accurate information on how to protect themselves against COVID-19 instead of false and often harmful claims propagated on SM. These findings highlight the importance of fact checking for combating COVID-19 fake news and help identify potential interventions.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行的爆发伴随着在社交媒体 (SM) 上传播的假新闻大流行。事实核查可能有助于打击假新闻，并且存在大量事实核查平台，但很少有人真正使用它们。此外，尚不清楚事实核查是否能有效防止公民因假新闻，尤其是与 COVID-19 相关的新闻而堕落。在此背景下，我们研究了可以作为干预目标的事实核查的潜在前因，并确定事实核查实际上可有效防止公众因有害的 COVID-19 假新闻而堕落。我们使用了 2020 年 4 月收集的具有代表性的美国样本，发现对假新闻的认识和积极使用 SM 的模式（例如，评论内容而不是阅读内容）增加了对 COVID-19 假新闻的事实核查，而 SM homophily 减少了事实检查和 SM 使用的影响，因为用户被困在“回声室”中。我们还发现事实核查可帮助用户识别有关如何保护自己免受 COVID-19 侵害的准确信息，而不是在 SM 上传播的虚假且通常有害的声明。这些发现强调了事实核查对于打击 COVID-19 假新闻的重要性，并有助于确定潜在的干预措施。