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http://hdl.handle.net/10397/93630
Title: | The effect of platform intervention policies on fake news dissemination and survival : an empirical examination | Authors: | Ng, KC Tang, J Lee, D |
Issue Date: | 2022 | Source: | Journal of management information systems, 2022, v. 38, no. 4, p. 898-930 | Abstract: | Fake news on social media has become a serious problem, and social media platforms have started to actively implement various interventions to mitigate its impact. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of two platform interventions, namely a content-level intervention (i.e., a fake news flag that applies to a single post) and an account-level intervention (i.e., a forwarding restriction policy that applies to the entire account). Collecting data from China’s largest social media platform, we study the impact of a fake news flag on three fake news dissemination patterns using a propensity score matching method with a difference-in-differences approach. We find that implementing a policy of using fake news flag influences the dissemination of fake news in a more centralized manner via direct forwards and in a less dispersed manner via indirect forwards, and that fake news posts are forwarded more often by influential users. In addition, compared with truthful news, fake news is disseminated in a less centralized and more dispersed manner and survives for a shorter period after a forwarding restriction policy is implemented. This study provides causal empirical evidence of the effect of a fake news flag on fake news dissemination. We also expand the literature on platform interventions to combat fake news by investigating a less studied account-level intervention. We discuss the practical implications of our results for social media platform owners and policymakers. | Keywords: | Fake news Fake news dissemination Fake news flag Fake news online Forwarding restriction policy Online disinformation Platform policies Quasi-experiment |
Publisher: | ME Sharpe Inc | Journal: | Journal of management information systems | ISSN: | 0742-1222 | EISSN: | 1557-928X | DOI: | 10.1080/07421222.2021.1990612 | Rights: | © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The following publication Ka Chung Ng, Jie Tang & Dongwon Lee (2021) The Effect of Platform Intervention Policies on Fake News Dissemination and Survival: An Empirical Examination, Journal of Management Information Systems, 38:4, 898-930 is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2021.1990612. |
Appears in Collections: | Journal/Magazine Article |
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