The Effect of Fact‐Checking on Elites: A Field Experiment on U.S. State Legislators

Abstract

Does external monitoring improve democratic performance? Fact-checking has come to play an increasingly important role in political coverage in the United States, but research suggests it may be ineffective at reducing public misperceptions about controversial issues. However, fact-checking might instead help improve political discourse by increasing the reputational costs or risks of spreading misinformation for political elites. To evaluate this deterrent hypothesis, we conducted a field experiment in nine U.S. states in which a randomly assigned group of state legislators were sent a series of letters about the risks to their reputation and electoral security if they are caught making questionable statements. The legislators who were sent these letters were substantially less likely to receive a negative fact-checking rating or to have their accuracy questioned publicly, suggesting that the threat posed by fact-checking can reduce inaccuracy in statements made by political elites.Funding support was provided by the Democracy Fund and New America Foundation. We thank Kevin Esterling, Tom Glaisyer, Michael Herron, Donald P. Green, and audiences at Duke University and Dartmouth College for helpful comments. We are also grateful to Eric Yang and Eli Derrow for excellent research assistance.

The Polarization of American Environmental Policy: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Senate and House Votes, 1971–2013

“…For example, Butler and Nickerson () provide experimental evidence that when legislators learn about their constituents' policy preferences, they move their voting behavior toward these constituents' preferences to avoid an electoral backlash. Similarly, Nyhan and Reifler () find that the threat of “fact‐checking” induces legislators to avoid incorrect claims during the election period. Thus, incumbents have incentives to adjust their environmental and energy voting in accordance to voter preferences.…”

Glasnost: Nine ways Facebook could become a better forum for free speech and democracy

“…Facebook should continue to strive towards providing users with more contextual information about news stories. Research has shown that the effects of fact-checking can be complex, and some have even argued that it can be counter-productive (Nyhan and Reifler, 2015;Lazer et al, 2018). But an important piece of research has suggested that Facebook's recent fact-checking efforts have had success in reducing the amount of misinformation in the average user's feed (Allcott, Gentzkow, and Yu, 2018).…”

Countering Superintelligence Misinformation

“…(Rare examples of studies on preventing misinformation are [34,35].) The other reason is that the correction of misinformation is largely cognitive and thus conducive to simple laboratory experiments, whereas the prevention of misinformation is largely sociological and thus requires a more complex and case-specific analysis.…”