In fighting “fake news”, might fact-checking defeat its own purpose?

 

  Arjen van Dalen
  University of Southern Denmark;
  Chair of Journalism studies section

Across Europe, journalists and media organizations have been alarmed by the potential dangers of intentionally spread misinformation. These concerns are undoubtedly related to the role of deliberately circulated false information (“fake news”) during the 2016 US Presidential election. Beyond this particular incident, the concerns reflect broader societal changes, where facts and authority seem to matter less in public debate than before. While these developments are stronger in certain parts of Europe than others, journalists across Europe are united in their concern about these changes. Not only does the spread of misinformation go against the democratic function of journalism to inform the citizens, but the circulation of “fake news” may also make people generally suspicious about the information that they see or read. Thus, the negative reputation of “fake news” might spill over to mainstream news outlets and decrease general levels of trust in the press among the public.

Faced with these threats, the media do not sit still. One of the most visible ways in which legacy news organizations respond to the spread of false news is by advancing fact-checking. According to a report by Graves and Cherubini (2016) for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, recent years have seen a steady rise in the number of fact-checking outlets across Europe. Mainstream media organizations as well as independent foundations all over Europe have invested in resources to check claims by politicians, public institutions and other media outlets for their accuracy. This trend became for example visible during the latest French Presidential elections, when numerous local, national and international news organizations joined forces to publicly debunk false claims. Similarly, established media in countries like The Netherlands and Denmark have dedicated sections where they correct misinformation which exists in the public domain. Also fact-checking outlets which are not attached to established news organizations regularly receive media attention, allowing them to reach a broader audience.

This growth in media attention for fact-checking, raises the question of how successful this remedy is in combating “fake news” and countering the spread of misinformation. Holding politicians and other public actors accountable for false claims might make them hesitant to spread misinformation, in particular in political cultures where this is generally condemned. But the real proof of the pudding is in the question of whether fact-checking alters the beliefs held by the general public and counters the spread of misinformation.

In a recent meta-study of research about debunking misinformation, Sally Chan and colleagues (2017) show that fact-checking can indeed help correct falsely held beliefs triggered by misinformation. Take the example of someone who has read a story including the unsupported statement that a vaccination against measles leads to autism. She will be less likely to remember this false claim if she reads that fact-checkers contest this claim, than when the claim is not debunked. Thus, fact-checking indeed helps to correct falsely held beliefs instated by “fake news”. However, the meta-study also shows that people who read a false claim and have this information corrected are still more likely to repeat the false information after the correction than people who had not heard or read the claim to begin with. When it comes to misinformation, ignorance is bliss: even if misinformation is debunked in a sophisticated way, being exposed to it in the first place makes it likely that the misinformation has a persistent effect.

This is important to realize for news organizations who dedicate editorial space to debunking false claims. When correcting a false claim, they will most of the time also repeat the claim. Sometimes this is done in headlines, like “Fact or fiction: Does measles vaccine increase the chance of autism?” or “FACT-CHECKED: measles vaccine does not increase the chance of autism”. In other cases, the false claim is mentioned within the story. When the mainstream media give attention to a false claim, the claim potentially also reaches a new audience which had not heard it in the first place. Even when this misinformation is debunked, it might set itself in the memory of some members of the audience.

By familiarizing the audience with false claims, fact-checking may have a second unintended consequence. A recent study by Pennycook and colleagues (2017) shows that people are more likely to believe fabricated statements to be accurate, when they have heard the statement before. This effect already takes place after hearing the statement only once, and was even observed when the original statement was accompanied by the message that fact-checkers have disputed the claim. This suggests that after reading a fact-checking story debunking the link between vaccination and autism, people are more likely to accept a similar story when they see it in the future.

Combined, these two recent studies raise a note of caution for news organizations who report the results of fact-checking. If the goal of a fact-checking story is to stop the spread of misinformation, it may defeat its own purpose. A fact-checking section might introduce a false claim to people who had not heard or seen the claim before. Some audience members will internalize the information in their memory, even though they are told the information is false. This makes them more likely to accept the claim as accurate if confronted with it again in the future.

In the light of these findings, fact-checkers might consider three things to better counter the spread of misinformation and false news. First, fact-checking in mainstream news outlets should be limited to correcting claims which are already widespread. Second, when possible, misinformation should be debunked directly at the source. Facebook provides a good example here, flagging false information as “disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers”. Third, news organizations might consider when the fact-checking resources are best spent. Instead of post hoc correcting false information which has made it into the public domain, in certain cases it might be preferred to have a stronger ex ante fact-checking which stops misinformation before it is published. When it comes to fact-checking, as for measles, prevention is better than cure.

 

Sources

Chan, M. P. S., Jones, C. R., Hall Jamieson, K., and Albarracín, D. (2017). Debunking: A meta-analysis of the psychological efficacy of messages countering misinformation. Psychological Science, 28 (11): 1531–1546, doi: 10.1177/0956797617714579

Graves, L. and Cherubini, F. (2016). The rise of fact-checking sites in Europe. Oxford: The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Pennycook, G., Cannon, T.D., and Rand, D.G. (2017). Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news. Available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=2958246