PurposeThere is a scarcity of research studies on why people remain inactive when encountering and recognising misinformation online. The main aim of this paper is to provide a groundwork for future research into why users do not challenge misinformation on digital platforms by generating hypotheses through a synthesis of pertinent literature, including organisational behaviour, communication, human-computer interaction (HCI), psychology and education.Design/methodology/approachGiven the lack of directly related literature, this paper synthesised findings from relevant fields where the findings might be relevant, as the tendency to withhold opinions or feedback is a well-documented practice in offline interaction.FindingsFollowing the analysis of relevant literature, the potential reasons for online silence towards misinformation can be divided into six categories: self-oriented, relationship-oriented, others-oriented, content-oriented, individual characteristics and technical factors.Originality/valueAlthough corrections coming from peers can effectively combat misinformation, several studies showed that people in cyberspace do not take such action. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been scarce and virtually non-existent research investigating why people refrain from challenging others who post misinformation online. Thus, this paper attempts to address this gap and identify reasons in adjacent domains. The reasons provide a starting point for researching interventions to reduce reluctance and abstinence regarding the challenge of misinformation. The findings can be beneficial beyond the area of challenging misinformation and are extensible to other types of content and communication that people are hesitant to discuss and challenge, such as online injustice, prejudice and hate speech.

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Persuasive design techniques have often been presented where the desired behaviour is primarily within personal boundaries, e.g., one's own health and learning. Limited research has been conducted on behaviours that require exposure to others, including correcting, confronting mistakes and wrongdoing. Challenging misinformation in others' posts online is an example of such social behaviour. This study draws on the main persuasive system design models and principles to create interfaces on social media to motivate users to challenge misinformation. We conducted a questionnaire (with 250 participants from the UK) to test the influence of these interfaces on willingness to challenge and how age, gender, personality traits, perspective-taking and empathy affected their perception of the persuasiveness of the interfaces. Our proposed interfaces exemplify seven persuasive strategies: reduction, suggestion, self-monitoring, recognition, normative influence, tunneling and liking. Most participants thought existing social media did not provide enough techniques and tools to challenge misinformation. While predefined question stickers (suggestion), private commenting (reduction), and thinking face reactions (liking) were seen as effective ways to motivate users to challenge misinformation, sentence openers (tunneling) was seen as the least influential. Increasing age and perspective taking were associated with increased likelihood of perceived persuasiveness and increasing openness to experience was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of perceived persuasiveness for "predefined question stickers". Increasing openness to experience was associated with increased likelihood of perceived persuasiveness for "thinking face reaction", while increasing age was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of perceived persuasiveness for "private commenting".

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