Third-Person Perceptions and Calls for Censorship of Flat Earth Videos on YouTube

Abstract

Calls for censorship have been made in response to the proliferation of flat Earth videos on YouTube, but these videos are likely convincing to very few. Instead, people may worry these videos are brainwashing others. That individuals believe other people will be more influenced by media messages than themselves is called third-person perception (TPP), and the consequences from those perceptions, such as calls for censorship, are called third-person effects (TPE). Here, we conduct three studies that examine the flat Earth phenomenon using TPP and TPE as a theoretical framework. We first measured participants’ own perceptions of the convincingness of flat Earth arguments presented in YouTube videos and compared these to participants’ perceptions of how convincing others might find the arguments. Instead of merely looking at ratings of one’s self vs. a general ‘other,’ however, we asked people to consider a variety of identity groups who differ based on political party, religiosity, educational attainment, and area of residence (e.g., rural, urban). We found that participants’ religiosity and political party were the strongest predictors of TPP across the different identity groups. In our second and third pre-registered studies, we found support for our first study’s conclusions, and we found mixed evidence for whether TPP predict support for censoring YouTube among the public.

Predictors of third-person perceptions about media's influence on vaccination against COVID-19

“…First, belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines/vaccination is a significant predictor, being associated with lower levels of TPE perception about media's influence on vaccination against COVID-19. These results contradict our expectations based on the literature to date (Douglas and Sutton, 2008; Landrum and Olshanky, 2020), stating that conspiratorial thinking might be correlated with high TPE, that is, people tend to believe that others are more prone to be affected by conspiracy theories circulating in the media. Findings from this study show a different kind of influence – the more people believe in conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 vaccination, the less they perceive others to be more influenced by the media on COVID-19 vaccination topics, thus invalidating H2.…”

“…Other investigations (Islam et al, 2021;Jolley and Douglas, 2014;Lewandowsky et al, 2013) indicated that a negative attitude towards vaccination can be linked to belief in conspiracy theories on the matter. Conspiratorial thinking is reportedly correlated with TPE, that is, people tend to believe that others are more prone to be affected by conspiracy theories (Douglas and Sutton, 2008;Landrum and Olshansky, 2020). However, to our knowledge, there is no academic study published so far reflecting to what extent TPE materializes in the context of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines.…”

Misinformation Is a Threat Because (Other) People are Gullible

“…The third-person effect may have both negative and positive societal outcomes. On the one hand, the third-person effect may fuel a demand for harmful regulations, as people who display a stronger perceptual gap in undesirable media effects are more likely to support censorship (e.g., Olshansky & Landrum, 2020; although meta-analytical evidence suggest that the effect size is small at best Feng & Guo, 2012). On the other hand, the third-person effect motivates actions to protect vulnerable others (Barnidge & Rojas, 2014;Lim, 2017), which may include the correction of misinformation (Koo et al, 2021).…”

Social media regulation, third-person effect, and public views: A comparative study of the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Mexico

“…One of the most prominent consequences of the self-other gap in perceived media influence (i.e. TPP) is support for restrictive or protective actions such as censorship of flat Earth videos on YouTube (Olshansky and Landrum, 2020) or Internet privacy protection measures (Chen and Atkin, 2021). In the context of misinformation, social media platform regulation has been widely discussed as the behavioral outcome of TPP.…”