Short corrective comments can help social media users spot misinformation, study finds

Research shows that reading other people’s corrections online can reduce perceived accuracy and engagement with incorrect content. The experts felt that the format and strength of the corrective comments did not matter much. Social media users do not need to write long, detailed comments to report fake content.

While the study shows the general effectiveness of social correction, it also reveals that correction errors also affect social media users: When user comments flag good news as fake, readers may perceive real news as less accurate. User comments can also cause more confusion on social media platforms.

The team conducted research with more than 6,600 people in the UK, Germany and Italy (1,944 people in the UK, 2,467 in Italy and 2,210 in Germany). Respondents completed a task of rating fake and real posts on various topics such as health, climate change and technology. The study used material posted on X (now Twitter), Instagram and Facebook.

The researchers did not find evidence that more sophisticated corrective signals, such as corrective comments with links to fact-checking websites, were consistently and statistically significantly more effective than weak corrective signals, such as a few words flagging a message as inaccurate. .

The study, published in the journal Communication psychology, was carried out by Florian Stoeckel, Chiara Ricchi and Jason Reifler from the University of Exeter, Sabrina Stöckli from the University of Zurich, Besir Ceka from Davidson College and Ben Lyons from the University of Utah.

Professor Stoeckel said: “Social corrections reduced perceived accuracy and engagement with fake news. We found that people don’t need to write lengthy corrective comments online when they want to report a post as inaccurate. However, by checking a fact-checking website. Before reporting a post as inaccurate, people can make sure their correction isn’t actually an error.”

“The simplicity of creating effective corrections can be a double-edged sword. Social media environments also include users who flag real news as fake. While social corrections can be effective for fake news, they can also undermine belief in real news. Results that users can easily be affected by correction errors, which highlights how important digital media education is.