2022 Project Liberty 2

Slowing disinformation on social media: digital literacy, fact checking and digital governance

Grantees: Julia Cagé, Sergei Guriev, and Emeric Henry

Duration: 3 years

Description:

In this project, PI propose to develop and test new solutions and methods to slow down or block the spread of false news and alternative facts. We propose solutions at two levels: upstream, to improve the regulation of platform companies and improve fact-checking procedures, and downstream, to enhance users’ ability to recognize false news. Our project will therefore both enhance digital governance, by proposing and evaluating changes to the design of social media, enhance the impact of fact checking, by evaluating best practices, and improve digital literacy, by designing and testing a training app that will be used in practice.

In the first pilar of the project, we will focus on the downstream actions of improving users’digital literacy and sensitivity to misinformation. Specifically, we propose to design a smartphone application based on two key principles. First, the app will train users to recognize false news and alternative facts. Second, the app will provide tools for users to realize the impact they have on others when they share. We will then carry out a randomized evaluation of the impact of this application on sharing true and false news on social media.

In the second part of pilar 1, we will explore solutions to improve digital governance. In particular, we will explore behavioral interventions that could discourage users from sharing false news. The intervention is to ask social media users to confirm their intention to share content. We will evaluate whether this simple intervention has a larger effect on false compared to true news and propose a system to adapt this cost to the potential accuracy, using a system of user ratings.

We will also measure the benefits of exposure to checked vs. unchecked news for the receivers of information; this will allow us to carry out a welfare analysis of the intervention and propose optimal policies.

The key idea of Pilar 2 is to build a partnership with AFP Factuel, the largest fact-checking group in France part of the third largest international news agency in the world (the Agence France Presse), to first study the impact of fact-checking and second to improve the design of factchecking and propose innovative tools to tackle disinformation. The key objectives of this pilar are to evaluate the impact of fact-checking on the circulation of fake news. and to determine the optimal format of a fact check (length, level of detail), and the best timing to maximize its impact.

Our unique collaboration with the AFP Factuel allows us to study the universe of French language fake news topics, ranging from recent covid misinformation in Congo, antisemitic conspiracy theories in Canada or fake news during the upcoming French presidential election 2022. Our approach is thus suitable to establish best practices for fact-checking and social media platforms around the globe.