Free but fake speech: When giving primacy to the source decreases misinformation sharing on social media

Di Domenico, Giandomenico, Nunan, Daniel, Sit, Jason and Pitardi, Valentina 2021. Free but fake speech: When giving primacy to the source decreases misinformation sharing on social media. Psychology and Marketing 38 (10) , pp. 1700-1711. 10.1002/mar.21479

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (831kB) | Preview

Abstract

Social media platforms are facing increasing tensions in balancing the desire to maintain freedom of expression with limiting the spread of fake news and misinformation. This study investigates whether giving primacy to the source of misinformation on Facebook influences users' sharing behaviour. Two experimental studies show that when fake news is presented in a source-primacy format, users are less likely to share the post because of reduced trust in the message and increased perceptions of deceptive intent. Additionally, this effect persists only when the person sharing the fake news has a weak interpersonal relationship with the receiver. The study extends current understanding of how misinformation is shared and provides insights into how presentation formats can be used to limit the spread of fake news without restricting freedom of speech.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0742-6046
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 June 2022
Date of Acceptance:	26 February 2021
Last Modified:	02 May 2023 17:09
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/150517

Citation Data

Cited 10 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item