Beyond Fact-Checking: Examining the Efficacy of 'Social Truth Queries'

• In Event: Countering Misinformation in the Global South

Abstract

The comparative efficacy of debunking interventions have yet to be fully explored in the Global South. Though recent work to fill this void have expanded the reach of fact-checking and social correction efforts, no current studies have assessed the broader applicability of these interventions to the specific types of misinformation and platforms prevalent in the Global South. To fill this gap we first examine a coded subset of Twitter data collected throughout Kenya’s 2022 presidential election campaign to assess the prevalence and composition of misinformation related to electoral integrity. Among the sample of 2,600 posts, we find that less than 45% of the 605 posts containing information with the potential to damage perceptions of election integrity could have been countered with traditional forms of fact-checking. Moreover, less than 20% of the misinformation identified could have plausibly been linked to an official fact-check produced during the election campaign. Use of a supervised learning model suggests that this trend is representative of the composition of our larger database of two million posts. To address the misinformation not currently covered by traditional fact-checking efforts we evaluate a novel method for democratizing debunking efforts that we call “social truth queries”. Building on successful lab studies, these queries rely on user comments which prompt users to question various aspects of the accompanying information, including its veracity, source, and social congruence. Using an online experiment (N=4,300), we show that social truth queries substantially reduce belief in potentially harmful partisan misinformation, but are less influential in shifting sharing determinations. Importantly, these effects are not limited to specific types of responses, enabling them to potentially address misinformation more quickly across diverse political and social contexts.

Author

• Morgan Wack, Clemson University