A comprehensive test of positive and negative effects of fact-checking

July 16, 2024 11:35 AM

Current interventions to combat misinformation, including fact-checking, media literacy tips and media coverage of misinformation, may have unintended consequences for democracy. We propose that these interventions may increase scepticism towards all information, including accurate information. ... Accordingly, this project addresses an overarching question of theoretical and practical importance: how can we improve interventions against misinformation to minimize their negative spillover effects? from Prominent misinformation interventions reduce misperceptions but increase scepticism [Nature]

Related: A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans

posted by chavenet (9 comments total)

People are way more responsibe to vibes than facts, unfortunately, and will reject facts that don't mesh with their vibes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:48 AM on July 16 [7 favorites]

Instintively I'm alright win increased skepticism, but that's not to say I don't share some of the article's worry.
Youtube has been advertising sites like "ground truth" which cross references news articles between different sites and categorizes them by "bias". The ideas that worry me are:
- someone can categorize every site's bias on a neat little left-right axis
- those axes make sense outside of the US political context - what is center, what is "far left/right".
- every journalist and article from each site shares its hosts' categorized bias. Since these are all algorithmic, no effort is made to analyze the article itself.
- that there is no such thing as objectivity / professionalism in journalism at all, which is probably true, but I hope not as true as cynics say.

Basically, these sites just seem to be reinforcing the filter bubble we all live in, and reinforcing our tribal instincts, which is at the route of so much evil these days :(
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:50 AM on July 16 [3 favorites]

I can't remember whether it was Sam Wineburg or Mike Caulfield who's written about this -- could be both, for that matter -- but yeah, this is a known problem in undergrad education. I do recommend their book Verified for good advice on (teaching) how to quickly and effectively assess claims. Per their research, these techniques thread the needle: they both improve misinformation recognition and reduce unnecessary skepticism.

I'm going to pitch an undergrad course in mis/disinformation to my department leadership this summer. If it flies, Verified will absolutely be one of the textbooks.
posted by humbug at 12:52 PM on July 16 [6 favorites]

Backfire effect previously
posted by lalochezia at 1:02 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

Stop letting right wing nutters run schools?
posted by chasles at 1:35 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

will reject facts that don't mesh with their vibes

we in the business of being smart call this Bayesian priors
posted by atoxyl at 1:36 PM on July 16 [5 favorites]

It's just exhausting to keep up with everything.

Questionable sources are usually useless, but occasionally have accurate information, and the info checking can hardly keep up with all the crap that's generated. Normally reliable sources sometimes go way off track and publish misinformation or absolute lies, and you're going to hear about that ad nauseum, which makes me wonder what's being missed or if there was deliberate intent.

Color me extremely skeptical. Too many agendas, known and unknown.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:52 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

I was taken aback when they wrote “Given that the average citizen is very unlikely to encounter misinformation” … really? They cite two studies from 2016, when the “fake news” panic was possibly overestimating the effect of mis- and disinformation. But given social media has largely back-burnered efforts to monitor harmful lies (and researchers have been threatened, defunded, sued, FOIA-d abusively, and sometimes fired), I would expect there’s more out there polluting the information space than ever.

That’s not to say lessons in fact-checking always work and don’t, at times, erode trust in legit information…
posted by zenzenobia at 2:59 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

I'm all for increased scepticism. Why not withhold judgement until you can get several reliable sources, or confirm it somehow?

Oh, they actually just mean mistrust.
posted by Dysk at 5:35 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]