Relationship between misinformation spreading behaviour and true/false judgments and literacy: an empirical analysis of COVID-19 vaccine and political misinformation in Japan

Abstract

Purpose In recent years, the social impact of misinformation has intensified. The purpose of this study is to clarify the mechanism by which misinformation spreads in society. Design/methodology/approach Testing the following two hypotheses by a logit model analysis of survey data using actual fact-checked COVID-19 vaccine and political misinformation: people who believe that some misinformation is true are more likely to spread it than those who do not believe in its truthfulness; people with lower media and information literacy are more likely to spread misinformation than people with higher media and information literacy. Findings The two hypotheses are supported, and the trend was generally robust regardless of the method, whether the means of diffusion was social media or direct conversation. Social implications The authors derived the following four implications from the results: governments need to further promote media information literacy education; platform service providers should consider mechanisms to facilitate the spread and display of posts by people who are aware of misinformation; fact-checking should be further promoted; people should acquire information based on the assumption that people who believe in some misinformation tend to spread it more. Originality/value First, it quantitatively clarifies the relationship between misinformation, true/false judgements and dissemination behaviour. Second, it quantitatively clarifies the relationship between literacy and misinformation dissemination behaviour. Third, it conducts a comprehensive analysis of diffusion behaviours, including those outside of social media.

Online harassment of Japanese celebrities and influencers

“…That of indirect harassment was 49%. These victimization ratios are higher than Japanese journalists (21.5%) (Yamaguchi et al, 2023a ) and ordinary people (4.7%) (Yamaguchi et al, 2023b ). This suggests a famous risk in Japan even with considering participation bias of our research.…”

“…The comprehensive picture of online harassment victimization is not clear. Recently, reports have been published on the surveys of victimization of ordinary people and journalists (Yamaguchi et al, 2023a , b ). However, not much is known about celebrities who are more likely to be targeted.…”

Examining the Effectiveness of Fact-Checking Tools on Social Media in Reducing the Spread of Misinformation

“…In addition, a large number of people are concerned about the spread of misinformation and public misinformation as it leads people to make poor collective decisions, such as ignoring public health recommendations during epidemics (Vegetti & Mancosu, 2022). Recognizing the potential harm of misinformation, individuals with greater awareness are expected to be more cautious about sharing unverified information (Yamaguchi & Tanihara, 2023). This cautiousness may translate into actively avoiding sharing posts suspected of being false or misleading, even if they resonate with their personal beliefs or biases (Giotakos, 2022).…”