Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Why Do We Not Stand Up To Misinformation? Factors Influencing The Likelihood Of Challenging Misinformation On Social Media And The Role Of Demographics, Selin Gurgun, Deniz Cemiloglu, Emily Arden Close, Keith Phalp, Preslav Nakov, Raian Ali

Natural Language Processing Faculty Publications

This study investigates the barriers to challenging others who post misinformation on social media platforms. We conducted a survey amongst U.K. Facebook users (143 (57.2 %) women, 104 (41.6 %) men) to assess the extent to which the barriers to correcting others, as identified in literature across disciplines, apply to correcting misinformation on social media. We also group the barriers into factors and explore demographic differences amongst them. It has been suggested that users are generally hesitant to challenge misinformation. We found that most of our participants (58.8 %) were reluctant to challenge misinformation. We also identified moderating roles of …