May 3, 2021

In ‘Nudge Effect of Fact-Check Alerts: Source Influence and Media Skepticism on Sharing of News Misinformation in Social Media’ (Social Media + Society, 2020). NUS Communications and New Media Associate Professor Elmie Nekmat examines how effective behavioural nudges in the form of fact-check alerts are in cutting down the spread of fake news over social media. As the rapid proliferation of fake news over social media has fast become an urgent problem around the world, fact-check alerts have emerged as a method of countering false news stories. These alerts include pop-up banners, tags, and information panels that assist us in identifying misinformation. Social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube have in recent years engaged third-party fact checkers and fact check panels, and in May 2020, Twitter added fact-checking labels to its tweets.

However, as Nekmat notes, fact-check alerts do not stop a fake news story from being spread; they only inform social media users that certain third-party fact checkers or news publishers have disputed it. Nevertheless, the use of fact-check alerts is quickly becoming more widespread on social media, making it highly important to ascertain how useful they are in combating misinformation. This is especially true in Singapore, where 86 percent of the population gets their news online.

Nekmat explains that nudges are set up to measurably change people’s behaviour without breeding conformity or punishing non-conformity. They function by influencing us through suggestions, not rules. Behavioural nudges are useful because people frequently need to take mental shortcuts to make decisions. As we are operating in a complex world that floods us with so much information and other stimuli, we do not have time to spare to deeply consider each and every choice we make in our daily lives.

Mental shortcuts prompted by behavioural nudges ideally lead us to making the best decisions we can. These nudges function to affect our decision-making by reconciling our opposing tendencies to plan for our long-term welfare while making short-term choices and taking quick actions due to our reactive habits.

Nekmat theorizes that fact-check alerts would bring together the persuasive power of loss aversion bias and status quo bias. Loss aversion bias is our tendency to avoid potential losses even if there is a chance of acquiring equivalent gains. This bias can work to stop us taking action. Similarly, status quo bias encourages us not to act in ways that could change our relationships with others, thus preserving the current (acceptable) state of affairs. Alerting us to news media misinformation could thus persuade us against believing the flagged news item and sharing the inaccurate news with our social media circle to maintain our reputation and credibility.

Nekmat adds that past research has found that people are open to being influenced against sharing falsehoods out of their personal concern for not seeming ignorant, not caring about factual matters, or not causing misunderstandings. In addition, people can benefit from being trusted sources of valuable news items. Studies have also found that mainstream news from legacy media producers continues to be viewed as more credible than alternative news from unfamiliar online news sites.

Nekmat also discusses how media scepticism can affect how and how widely news stories are shared. Media scepticism is the extent to which we disregard the veracity of information in mainstream news stories. He points out that people who are more sceptical of mainstream media may be more likely to share news from less well known alternative news sites.

Nekmat investigated the degree to which fact-check alerts would influence people to be less apt to share misleading news items on social media by surveying 45,000 Facebook users in Singapore. Half of the 1,100 people who responded were exposed to an online replication of The Straits Times, which represents a legacy mainstream news source. The others were exposed to a made-up news site called Red Dot Review. The same mock news report titled “Fall in HIV Cases” was delivered to all participants through both platforms. Participants had less than two minutes to read the report and half of each group of participants were given behavioural nudges in the form of fact-check alerts, informing them that the story was not accurate. Afterwards they reported their likelihood to share the news report via a questionnaire.

The participants were measured on how likely they were to share news and how sceptical they were of media. Participants who were more often engaged in consuming online news were less likely to share news. Surprisingly, fact-check alerts on mainstream media stories caused them to be shared less than the same alerts on little known alternative media stories. Nekmat also found that media scepticism increases the effectiveness of fact-check alerts only when participants read news from mainstream sources.

Nekmat’s study demonstrated that behavioural nudges in the form of fact-check alerts can influence people against spreading fake news stories over social media. It further revealed that social media users are generally less inclined to share news from an unfamiliar alternative news site that has been flagged as misinformation. It is notable, however, that fact-check alerts have an overall stronger effect on boosting our reluctance to share news from mainstream media than alternative media. This shows that we are less tolerant of errors from established media than from alternative media.

Nekmat stresses the importance of carefully evaluating claims that legacy news organizations are disseminating fake news, since fact-check alert systems are themselves vulnerable to misuse. Since we now know that news story source biases the effect of fact-check alerts, Facebook and its competitors should provide more data on any news flagged by fact-checks. This data can include how often the news source has been flagged, its origin and background, and ratings on trustworthiness and familiarity from editors as well as the general public. Finally, in light of his discovery that fact-check alerts have more impact on established news producers than little-known ones, Nekmat advises an examination of the long-term effect of fact-checking legacy media, particularly when its content is heavily flagged for spreading falsehoods.