“I Don’t Think That’s True, Bro!” Social Corrections of Misinformation in India

Abstract

Fact-checks and corrections of falsehoods have emerged as effective ways to counter misinformation online. But in contexts with encrypted messaging applications (EMAs), corrections must necessarily emanate from peers. Are such social corrections effective? If so, how substantiated do corrective messages need to be? To answer these questions, we evaluate the effect of different types of social corrections on the persistence of misinformation in India ([Formula: see text]5,100). Using an online experiment, we show that social corrections substantially reduce beliefs in misinformation, including in beliefs deeply anchored in salient group identities. Importantly, these positive effects are not systematically attenuated by partisan motivated reasoning, highlighting a striking difference from Western contexts. We also find that the presence of a correction matters more relative to how sophisticated this correction is: substantiating a correction with a source only improves its effect in a minority of cases; besides, when social corrections are effective, citing a source does not drastically improve the size of their effect. These results have implications for both users and platforms and speak to countering misinformation in developing countries that rely on private messaging apps.

When fact-checking is not WEIRD: Negotiating consensus outside Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries

“…Experimental studies focused on mitigating individual false beliefs often rely on authoritative fact-checking solutions (van der Meer et al 2023). However, emerging findings from non-WEIRD samples challenge these assumptions, suggesting that horizontal strategies based on social corrections may be more effective in contexts where the drivers of misinformation and disinformation extend beyond political partisanship (Badrinathan and Chauchard 2023). While our research highlights the importance of media literacy programs, it aligns with existing literature arguing that the factors contributing to misinformation and disinformation in non-WEIRD contexts go beyond individual literacy in online content consumption (Bhatia and Arora 2022;Tully et al 2021;Valenzuela et al 2022).…”

Online misinformation and everyday ontological narratives of social distinction

“…Because Miles chose not to use Facebook, he saw the issue of misinformation as “immaterial” to him. Although misinformation does of course spread on personal messaging (Badrinathan and Chauchard, 2023; Chadwick et al, 2023a), Miles does not acknowledge this possibility. On personal messaging, he is able to limit his information sources to people he “knows,” and this is part of his ontological narrative—how his personal choices in his everyday relationships intersect with the public world outside in ways that, to him, enhance his status in both.…”

“…No individual is capable of verifying everything they encounter, nor is an imagined innate intuition sufficient for identifying all forms of deception. Restricting one's social media diet to personal messaging does not render one immune either, as misinformation can and does spread on these platforms including between trusted contacts (Andrey et al, 2021;Badrinathan and Chauchard, 2023;Chadwick et al, 2023aChadwick et al, , 2023b.…”

Social truth queries: Development of a new user-driven intervention for countering online misinformation.

“…Individuals may not trust the legitimacy of the fact-checking services that perform corrections, and social media companies may not be incentivized or have the resources to fact-check themselves (Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2017). And while corrections made by other users can be effective (Badrinathan & Chauchard, 2023; Bode & Vraga, 2018; Vraga & Bode, 2021), individuals may be hesitant to directly call out their peers.…”

“…Additionally, individuals may not trust the legitimacy of the fact-checking services that perform corrections, and social media companies may not be incentivized or have the resources to implement these corrections themselves (5). And while corrections made by other users can be effective (6)(7)(8), individuals may be hesitant to directly call out their peers or lack fact-checking resources to do so effectively or efficiently.…”