Accuracy Nudges for Authoritarians? The Spread of Misinformation During COVID-19

• In Event: Is There a Cure for Misinformation?

Abstract

A rapidly growing interdisciplinary literature is concerned with understanding the determinants of individuals' propensity to spread misinformation on the Internet. The goal of these studies is to develop interventions that improve the ability of individuals to distinguish between true and fake news. In the wake of the widespread dissemination of Covid-19-related misinformation, it seems more important than ever to understand under what conditions such interventions can be successful, and whether they can affect all individuals regardless of their ideological predispositions. In this article, we argue that only citizens with low right-wing authoritarian predispositions can be easily swayed by an "accuracy nudge" intervention - which a large number of researchers consider one of the most promising interventions against the spread of misinformation. We focus on two Central Eastern European countries with an exceptionally high prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation (Hungary and Romania) and conduct a large (N=2500) and innovative JavaScript-based online experiment. This experiment allows us to place an "Accuracy Nudge" intervention in an environment designed to reflect people's general attention deficits, which play a key role in real-life social media behavior. The results of our study support the idea that the elasticity of nudging people to spread true rather than false news is strongly dependent on their prior political beliefs. The results also demonstrate that contexts characterized by affective decision-making particularly impair the ability of people with right-wing authoritarian inclinations to share true rather than false news.

Authors

• Veronica Anghel, Johns Hopkins University

• Julia SchulteCloos, LMU Munich