Who is perceived to be an expert on COVID-19 vaccination on social media? We conducted two experimental studies investigating how the presence of biomedical credentials on social media profiles impacts users’ perceived expertise. Participants (Experiment 1 N = 200; Experiment 2 N = 201) viewed a series of Twitter profiles that appeared with or without biomedical credentials and judged to what extent they believed each user was an expert on the topic of COVID-19 vaccination. We found that the presence of biomedical credentials consistently increased perceptions of expertise, including among unvaccinated, vaccine-hesitant, and conservative participants. This work supports existing observations that biomedical credentials may be leveraged by both pro- and anti-vaccine communities to increase perceived credibility and message reach, and counters the narrative that those with anti-vaccination attitudes do not recognize biomedical credentials as conferring expertise.

The spread of false information on social media is a growing problem that has necessitated the development of interventions to reduce its impact. We tested the potential effectiveness of social “truth queries” — user replies that draw attention to truth — as a novel intervention for reducing the impact of false information shared on social media. Participants were shown Tweets containing false information that appeared with user replies containing truth queries (Experiments 1-3), no replies (Experiments 1-3), or user replies unrelated to truth (Experiments 2-3) and asked to judge either the truth of the information contained in the Tweet or their likelihood of sharing it. We consistently found that social truth queries reduce belief in and reported intent to share Tweets containing false information compared to no replies or replies unrelated to truth. The findings suggest the usefulness of truth queries as a simple, flexible, user-driven approach to addressing online misinformation.