Trust the crowd: Crowdsourced fact-checking is as effective at reducing confidence in misinformation as expert...

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Communication Studies
• Psychology

Background:

• Social media facilitates the rapid spread of misinformation, impacting health and political decision-making.
• Traditional expert fact-checking faces challenges in timely and effective content moderation.
• X (formerly Twitter) introduced Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking system, to address misinformation and perceived bias.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of expert versus crowdsourced fact-checks on X in reducing belief in and engagement with misinformation.
• To evaluate the impact of Community Notes on user confidence and willingness to share false information.

Main Methods:

• 102 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to expert or crowdsourced fact-checking conditions.
• Measures included confidence in misinformation veracity and willingness to retweet, assessed pre- and post-exposure to fact-checks.

Main Results:

• Both crowdsourced and expert fact-checks significantly reduced participants' confidence in misinformation.
• Both fact-checking methods also decreased the willingness to retweet the misinformation.
• Crowdsourced fact-checking demonstrated efficacy comparable to expert fact-checking.

Conclusions:

• Crowdsourced fact-checking is an effective strategy for mitigating the impact of online misinformation.
• The success of Community Notes suggests other social media platforms should consider adopting similar crowdsourced approaches.
• Further research into crowdsourced fact-checking mechanisms is warranted given its growing popularity and demonstrated effectiveness.