🚨WP🚨
Conspiracy beliefs famously resist correction, right?
WRONG: We show brief convos w GPT4 reduce conspiracy beliefs by ~20pp (d~1)!
🡆Tailored AI evidence rebut specific arguments offered by believers
🡆Effect lasts 2+mo
🡆Works on entrenched beliefs
osf.io/preprints/psya…


Attempts to debunk conspiracies are often futile, leading many to conclude that consp beliefs are driven by needs/motivations & thus resistant to evidence. But maybe past attempts just didn't deliver sufficiently specific/compelling evidence+arguments?

🚨New WP🚨

Intuition favors belief in false claims. But why?

@ROrchinik argues its the result of rationally adaptative intuitions adjusting to low base rate of false claims in the US media environment

Check out Reed's talk at SJDM on 11/18 9:10am!

PDF: osf.io/preprints/psya…
Belief in misinfo has been linked to components of the digital media environment that increase reliance on intuitions. But why do our intuitions support belief in falsehoods?

Most theories of belief, eg @DanTGilbert, suggest that information must be accepted before deliberation

🚨Out in PoPS🚨
Can crowds help identify misinfo at scale? In this review we show seemingly contradictory findings in the lit are simply due to different analytic approaches. In all data, crowd is highly correlated w experts!
Crowd ratings=useful signals
journals.sagepub.com/eprint/NMKPE6F…
Professional fact-checking can help reduce misinfo:
➤Warning labels reduce belief & sharing
➤Platforms can downrank flagged content, reducing views

But - the volume of content posted is almost unlimited & exceeds the capacity of professional FCers. How to ID misinfo at SCALE?

🚨Out in @NatureHumBehav🚨
We examine psychology of misinformation across
16 countries, N=34k
➤Consistent cognitive, social & ideological predictors of misinfo belief
➤Interventions (accuracy prompts, diglit tips, crowdsourcing) all broadly effective

1/ https://t.co/pNagzRcCyHnature.com/articles/s4156…






A lot has been learned about psychology of misinformation/fake news, and what interventions may work. For overview, see @GordPennycook and my TICS review:

BUT almost all of this work has been focused on the west- and misinfo is a GLOBAL problem!

https://twitter.com/GordPennycook/status/1379513315542495235?s=20

🚨Out in @NatureComms🚨
New measure of Twitter users' exposure to misinfo from *ELITES* using @politifact ratings of the elites a user follows
➤Predicts users' misinfo sharing
➤More extreme Reps = more exposure
Check out your own exposure w/ web app! misinfoexpose.com
1/ Here's an (open access) link to the academic paper: nature.com/articles/s4146…
In this thread I'll unpack what we did and what we found

🚨Accuracy Prompt Meta-Thread🚨
Weve proposed that prompting people to think about accuracy reduces misinfo sharing. But is this effect replicable & robust?
@GordPennycook & I analyzed 20 exps, N=26k
Answer: resounding YES, across many headlines/prompts
nature.com/articles/s4146…
1/ Previously we found a disconnect between what people judge as accurate and what they say they'd share- despite not wanting to share things they realize are false. Why? Largely bc people simply forget to consider accuracy when deciding what to share

https://twitter.com/DG_Rand/status/1372217700626411527?s=20

🚨New WP🚨
Many people - from Trump to @elonmusk - have accused Twitter of anti-conservative bias

Is this accusation accurate?

We test for evidence of such a bias empirically - and turns out it's more complicated than you might think...

psyarxiv.com/ay9q5
1/ The root of the challenge when inferring political bias is that Republicans/conservatives are substantially more likely to share misinformation/fake news, as shown eg by @andyguess @j_a_tucker @grinbergnir @davidlazer et al science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… science.org/doi/abs/10.112…

🚨WP:Examining psychology of misinformation around the globe🚨
Across 16 countries N=34k
➤Strong regularities in cognitive, social & ideological predictors of misinfo belief
➤Broad intervention efficacy (accuracy prompts, literacy tips, crowdsourcing)
psyarxiv.com/a9frz
1/ A lot has been learned about psychology of misinformation/fake news, and what interventions may work - for overview, see @GordPennycook and my TICS review below:

https://twitter.com/GordPennycook/status/1379513315542495235?s=20

BUT almost all of this work has been focused on the west- and misinfo is a GLOBAL problem!

🚩Working paper🚩
DIGITAL LITERACY & SUSCEPTIBILITY TO FAKE NEWS

Lots of assumptions-but little data-out there on link b/w digital literacy & fake news

We find 2 diff digital lit measures predict ability to tell true vs false-but NOT sharing intent psyarxiv.com/7rb2m
1/ Lack of digital literacy is a favorite explanation in both public & academy for the spread of fake news/misinformation. But there's surprisingly little data investigating this, and results that do exist are mixed. One issue is that dig lit is operationalized in various diff ways

🚨Out in @ScienceAdvances🚨
SCALING UP FACT-CHECKING USING THE WISDOM OF CROWDS

How can platforms identify misinfo at scale? We find small groups of laypeople can match professional factcheckers when evaluating URLs flagged for checking by Facebook!

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
1/ Fact-checking could reduce misinformation
➤ Platforms can downrank flagged content so fewer users see it
➤ Warnings reduce belief and sharing

⚠️But it doesn't SCALE⚠️
Fact-checkers can't keep up w vast quantity of content posted every day

(FCs also accused of liberal bias)

🚨Out now in Nature!🚨
A fundamentally new way of fighting misinfo online:

Surveys+field exp w >5k Twitter users show that gently nudging users to think about accuracy increases quality of news shared- bc most users dont share misinfo on purpose
nature.com/articles/s4158…

1/ Why do people share misinfo? Are they just confused and can't tell whats true?

Probably not!

When asked about accuracy of news, subjects rated true posts much higher than false. But when asked if theyd *share* online, veracity had little impact-instead was mostly about politics

New WP for your doomscroll:

➤We follow 842 Twitter users with Dem or Rep bot
➤We find large causal effect of shared partisanship on tie formation: Users ~3x more likely to follow-back a co-partisan

psyarxiv.com/ykh5t/

Led by @_mohsen_m w/ @Cameron_Martel_ @deaneckles

1/ We are more likely to be friends with co-partisans offline & online

But this doesn't show *causal* effect of shared partisanship on tie formation
* Party correlated w many factors that influence tie formation
* Could just be preferential exposure (eg via friend rec algorithm)

🚨Working paper alert!🚨
"Scaling up fact-checking using the wisdom of crowds"

We find that 10 laypeople rating just headlines match performance of professional fact-checkers researching full articles- using set of URLs flagged by internal FB algorithm

psyarxiv.com/9qdza/ Fact-checking could help fight misinformation online:

➤ Platforms can downrank flagged content so that fewer users see it

➤ Corrections can reduce false beliefs (forget backfires: e.g. link.springer.com/article/10.100… by @thomasjwood @EthanVPorter)

🚨But there is a BIG problem!🚨

Today @GordPennycook & I wrote a @nytimes op ed

"The Right Way to Fix Fake News"
nytimes.com/2020/03/24/opi…

tl;dr: Platforms must rigorously TEST interventions, b/c intuitions about what will work are often wrong

In this thread I unpack the many studies behind our op ed

1/ Platforms are under pressure to do something about misinformation. Would be simple to rapidly implement interventions that sound like they would be effective.

But just because an intervention sounds reasonable doesn’t mean that it will actually work: Psychology is complex!

2/

🚨New working paper!🚨

"Fighting COVID-19 misinformation on social media:
Experimental evidence for a scalable accuracy nudge intervention"

We test if an intervention we developed for political fake news works for #COVID19- seems like YES!

PDF: psyarxiv.com/uhbk9/

1/ Previously we found people share political misinfo b/c social media distracts them from accuracy- NOT b/c they cant tell true v false, NOT b/c they dont care about accuracy

So nudging them to think about accuracy improved quality of news they shared!

https://twitter.com/DG_Rand/status/1196171145227251712

2/

🚨Working paper alert!🚨 "Understanding and reducing the spread of misinformation online"

We introduce a behavioral intervention (accuracy salience) & show in surveys+field exp w >5k Twitter users that it increases quality of news sharing

psyarxiv.com/3n9u8

1/ We first ask why people share misinformation. It is because they simply can't assess the accuracy of information?

Probably not!

When asked about accuracy, MTurkers rate true headlines much higher than false. But when asked if theyd share online, veracity has little impact
2/