Fact-check warnings fail to stop repeated fake headlines gaining perceived truth
Evidence
A few years after Fazio’s study, colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) confirmed that previous exposure to a whole range of fake news can indeed increase its truth-value, even when the stories are flagged as ‘contested’ by fact-checkers. Their experiments included a wide range of outlandish headlines in the context of the 2016 US presidential election, including ‘BLM Thug Protests President Trump with Selfie … Accidentally Shoots Himself in the Face’, and ‘Mike Pence: Gay Conversion Therapy Saved My Marriage’. These statements were rated as more accurate after repeated exposure, regardless of an individual’s political affiliation. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 70
Categorization
- XREF: Directly complicates my interest in whether debunking and fact-checking interventions are effective in curbing misinformation. — connects to: Fixing misinformation requires changing revenue incentives, not just content exposure — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 470; Only four percent of people can reliably identify fake news headlines — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 43; Education lowers fake-news belief but not susceptibility to illusory truth — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 72 (+4 more)
- QUESTION: What formats of fact-checking warning, if any, do blunt the repetition effect?
Broader Connections
- Education lowers fake-news belief but not susceptibility to illusory truth
#expands(0.85) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 72 - Correcting misinformation may be ineffective because people continue using it
#corroborates(0.82) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 249 - Some fake news outlets deliberately mimic legitimate news brands to exploit trust
#exemplifies(0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 194