What motivates people to counter misinformation on social media? Unpacking the roles of perceived consequences, third-person perception and social media use

Abstract

PurposeDrawing upon the third-person effect (TPE) theory, this study focuses on two types of misinformation countering intentions (i.e. simple correction and correction with justification). Accordingly, it aims to (1) assess the tenability of the third-person perception (TPP) in the face of misinformation on social media, (2) explore the antecedents of TPP and its relationship with individual-level misinformation countering intentions and (3) examine whether the mediating process is contingent on different social media usage conditions.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted with 1,000 representative respondents recruited in Mainland China in January 2022 using quota sampling. Paired t-test, multiple linear regression and moderated mediation analysis were employed to examine the proposed hypotheses.FindingsResults bolster the fundamental proposition of TPP that individuals perceive others as more susceptible to social media misinformation than they are. The self-other perceptual bias served as a mediator between the perceived consequence of misinformation and misinformation countering (i.e. simple correction and correction with justification) intentions. Furthermore, intensive social media users were likely to be motivated to counter social media misinformation derived from the indirect mechanism.Originality/valueThe findings provide further evidence for the role of TPE in explaining misinformation countering intention as prosocial and altruistic behavior rather than self-serving behavior. Practically, promising ways to combat rampant misinformation on social media include promoting the prosocial aspects and beneficial outcomes of misinformation countering efforts to others, as well as reconfiguring the strategies by impelling intensive social media users to participate in enacting countering actionsPeer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2022-0507.

Understanding health misinformation sharing among the middle-aged or above in China: roles of social media health information seeking, misperceptions and information processing predispositions

“…First, NFC is a self-reported indicator, which may be susceptible to self-enhancement bias or cognitive illusion. Self-enhancement bias is fairly common in the misinformation context since individuals prefer to maintain a positive self-image by overrating their ability to resist misinformation's influences (Jang and Kim, 2018;Luo et al, 2023). This perceptual bias may also establish in assessing self-enjoyment and engagement in elaborative critical thinking, leading to an overestimation of NFC.…”

“…Accordingly, social media users are likely to share health misinformation perceived as dependable or trustworthy with others to cope with uncertainty out of altruistic motivation (e.g. introducing a seemingly effective countermeasure of disease to one's network) or merely to reduce the individual burden of anxiety aroused by uncertainty (Lu et al, 2022;Luo et al, 2023;Zhao and Tsang, 2023). Therefore, we put forward the following hypothesis (i.e.…”

“…reinforcing platform-based fact-checking mechanisms) or individual-level solutions (e.g. encouraging user correction by implementing media literacy education) (Luo et al, 2023). Since health information seeking on social media contributes to misperceptions and misinformation sharing intention, regulating misinformation from the source would mitigate the situation.…”

“…Misinformation poses a grave threat to our society with severe socioeconomic and political ramifications (Ceylan et al, 2023;Luo et al, 2023). Health misinformation, defined as health information falsified by the scientific community or medical expert consensus at the time of the study (Tan et al, 2015), proliferates on social media (Bode and Vraga, 2018;Xiao, 2022a).…”

“…Misinformation poses a grave threat to our society with severe socioeconomic and political ramifications (Ceylan et al. , 2023; Luo et al. , 2023).…”