‘I Think This News Is Accurate’: Endorsing Accuracy Decreases the Sharing of Fake News and Increases the Sharing of Real News

Abstract

Accuracy prompts, nudges that make accuracy salient, typically decrease the sharing of fake news, while having little effect on real news. Here, we introduce a new accuracy prompt that is more effective than previous prompts, because it does not only reduce fake news sharing, but it also increases real news sharing. We report four preregistered studies showing that an “endorsing accuracy” prompt (“I think this news is accurate”), placed into the sharing button, decreases fake news sharing, increases real news sharing, and keeps overall engagement constant. We also explore the mechanism through which the intervention works. The key results are specific to endorsing accuracy, rather than accuracy salience, and endorsing accuracy does not simply make participants apply a “source heuristic”. Finally, we use Pennycook et al.’s limited-attention model to argue that endorsing accuracy may work by making people more carefully consider their sharing decisions.

Keywords: fake news, misinformation, accuracy salience, policy making

JEL Classification: D83, D91, D99