IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/psewpa/halshs-04315924.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Curtailing False News, Amplifying Truth

Author

Listed:
  • Sergei Guriev

    (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris)

  • Emeric Henry

    (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris)

  • Théo Marquis

    (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris)

  • Ekaterina Zhuravskaya

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

We develop a comprehensive framework to assess policy measures aimed at curbing false news dissemination on social media. A randomized experiment on Twitter during the 2022 U.S. mid-term elections evaluates such policies as priming the awareness of misinformation, fact-checking, confirmation clicks, and prompting careful consideration of content. Priming is the most effective policy in reducing sharing of false news while increasing sharing of true content. A model of sharing decisions, motivated by persuasion, partisan signaling, and reputation concerns, predicts that policies affect sharing through three channels: (i) updating perceived veracity and partisanship of content, (ii) raising the salience of reputation, and (iii) increasing sharing frictions. Structural estimation shows that all policies impact sharing via the salience of reputation and cost of friction. Affecting perceived veracity plays a negligible role as a mechanism in all policies, including fact-checking. The priming intervention performs best in enhancing reputation salience with minimal added friction.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergei Guriev & Emeric Henry & Théo Marquis & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2023. "Curtailing False News, Amplifying Truth," PSE Working Papers halshs-04315924, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04315924
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04315924v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04315924v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521766555, December.
    2. Antonio A. Arechar & Jennifer Allen & Adam J. Berinsky & Rocky Cole & Ziv Epstein & Kiran Garimella & Andrew Gully & Jackson G. Lu & Robert M. Ross & Michael N. Stagnaro & Yunhao Zhang & Gordon Pennyc, 2023. "Understanding and combatting misinformation across 16 countries on six continents," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(9), pages 1502-1513, September.
    3. Antonio A. Arechar & Jennifer Allen & Adam J. Berinsky & Rocky Cole & Ziv Epstein & Kiran Garimella & Andrew Gully & Jackson G. Lu & Robert M. Ross & Michael N. Stagnaro & Yunhao Zhang & Gordon Pennyc, 2023. "Author Correction: Understanding and combatting misinformation across 16 countries on six continents," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 1797-1797, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eleonora Alabrese & Francesco Capozza & Prashant Garg, 2024. "Politicized Scientists: Credibility Cost of Political Expression on Twitter," CESifo Working Paper Series 11254, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elizaveta Kuznetsova & Mykola Makhortykh & Victoria Vziatysheva & Martha Stolze & Ani Baghumyan & Aleksandra Urman, 2025. "In generative AI we trust: can chatbots effectively verify political information?," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-31, February.
    2. Falkenberg, Max & Cinelli, Matteo & Galeazzi, Alessandro & Bail, Christopher A. & Benito, Rosa & Bruns, Axel & Gruzd, Anatoliy & Lazer, David & Lee, Jae K. & McCoy, Jennifer, 2025. "Towards global equity in political polarization research," OSF Preprints 3wzfq_v1, Center for Open Science.
    3. Joakim Sundh, 2024. "Human behavior in the context of low-probability high-impact events," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Jan Pfänder & Sacha Altay, 2025. "Spotting false news and doubting true news: a systematic review and meta-analysis of news judgements," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(4), pages 688-699, April.
    5. Zhifeng Gao & Ted C. Schroeder, 2009. "Consumer responses to new food quality information: are some consumers more sensitive than others?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(3), pages 339-346, May.
    6. Cheng, Leilei & Yin, Changbin & Chien, Hsiaoping, 2015. "Demand for milk quantity and safety in urban China: evidence from Beijing and Harbin," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 59(2), April.
    7. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    8. Christelis, Dimitris & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Motta, Alberto, 2020. "Early life conditions and financial risk-taking in older age," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    9. Ortega, David L. & Wang, H. Holly & Wu, Laping & Hong, Soo Jeong, 2015. "Retail channel and consumer demand for food quality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 359-366.
    10. Doyle, Orla & Fidrmuc, Jan, 2006. "Who favors enlargement?: Determinants of support for EU membership in the candidate countries' referenda," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 520-543, June.
    11. Tovar, Jorge, 2012. "Consumers’ Welfare and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from the Car Industry in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 808-820.
    12. Pereira, Pedro & Ribeiro, Tiago, 2011. "The impact on broadband access to the Internet of the dual ownership of telephone and cable networks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 283-293, March.
    13. Mark Morrison & Craig Nalder, 2009. "Willingness to Pay for Improved Quality of Electricity Supply Across Business Type and Location," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(2), pages 117-134, April.
    14. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2012. "Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, March.
    15. Mtimet, Nadhem & Ujiie, Kiyokazu & Kashiwagi, Kenichi & Zaibet, Lokman & Nagaki, Masakazu, 2011. "The effects of Information and Country of Origin on Japanese Olive Oil Consumer Selection," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114642, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Chavez, Daniel E. & Palma, Marco A. & Nayga, Rodolfo M. & Mjelde, James W., 2020. "Product availability in discrete choice experiments with private goods," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    17. Doherty, Edel & Campbell, Danny, 2011. "Demand for improved food safety and quality: a cross-regional comparison," 85th Annual Conference, April 18-20, 2011, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 108791, Agricultural Economics Society.
    18. Abdurrahman B. Aydemir & Erkan Duman, 2021. "Migrant Networks and Destination Choice: Evidence from Moves across Turkish Provinces," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2109, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    19. Brown, Sarah & Greene, William H. & Harris, Mark N. & Taylor, Karl, 2015. "An inverse hyperbolic sine heteroskedastic latent class panel tobit model: An application to modelling charitable donations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 228-236.
    20. Divine Ikenwilo & Sebastian Heidenreich & Mandy Ryan & Colette Mankowski & Jameel Nazir & Verity Watson, 2018. "The Best of Both Worlds: An Example Mixed Methods Approach to Understand Men’s Preferences for the Treatment of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 11(1), pages 55-67, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04315924. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.