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Research papers on Misinformation on social media

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  2. Systematic Literature Review on the Spread of Health-related Misinformation on Social Media

    Yuxi Wang, Martin McKee, Aleksandra Torbica, et al. · 2019 · Social Science & Medicine · 1,868 citations

    Contemporary commentators describe the current period as "an era of fake news" in which misinformation, generated intentionally or unintentionally, spreads rapidly. Although affecting all areas of life, it poses particular problems in the health arena, where it can delay or prevent effective care, in some cases threatening the lives of individuals. While examples of the rapid spread of misinformation date back to the earliest days of scientific medicine, the internet, by allowing instantaneous communication and powerful amplification has brought about a quantum change. In democracies where ideas compete in the marketplace for attention, accurate scientific information, which may be difficult

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  3. Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review

    Víctor Suárez-Lledó, Javier Álvarez‐Gálvez · 2020 · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 1,560 citations

    BACKGROUND: Although at present there is broad agreement among researchers, health professionals, and policy makers on the need to control and combat health misinformation, the magnitude of this problem is still unknown. Consequently, it is fundamental to discover both the most prevalent health topics and the social media platforms from which these topics are initially framed and subsequently disseminated. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aimed to identify the main health misinformation topics and their prevalence on different social media platforms, focusing on methodological quality and the diverse solutions that are being implemented to address this public health concern. METHODS: We sea

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  5. Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality

    Gordon Pennycook, David G. Rand · 2019 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 982 citations

    Significance Many people consume news via social media. It is therefore desirable to reduce social media users’ exposure to low-quality news content. One possible intervention is for social media ranking algorithms to show relatively less content from sources that users deem to be untrustworthy. But are laypeople’s judgments reliable indicators of quality, or are they corrupted by either partisan bias or lack of information? Perhaps surprisingly, we find that laypeople—on average—are quite good at distinguishing between lower- and higher-quality sources. These results indicate that incorporating the trust ratings of laypeople into social media ranking algorithms may prove an effective interv

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  6. Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news

    Dietram A. Scheufele, Nicole M. Krause · 2019 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 888 citations

    Concerns about public misinformation in the United States—ranging from politics to science—are growing. Here, we provide an overview of how and why citizens become (and sometimes remain) misinformed about science. Our discussion focuses specifically on misinformation among individual citizens. However, it is impossible to understand individual information processing and acceptance without taking into account social networks, information ecologies, and other macro-level variables that provide important social context. Specifically, we show how being misinformed is a function of a person’s ability and motivation to spot falsehoods, but also of other group-level and societal factors that increa

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  8. Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media

    Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Chuan Yu · 2019 · Research & Politics · 653 citations

    In recent years, there has been widespread concern that misinformation on social media is damaging societies and democratic institutions. In response, social media platforms have announced actions to limit the spread of false content. We measure trends in the diffusion of content from 569 fake news websites and 9540 fake news stories on Facebook and Twitter between January 2015 and July 2018. User interactions with false content rose steadily on both Facebook and Twitter through the end of 2016. Since then, however, interactions with false content have fallen sharply on Facebook while continuing to rise on Twitter, with the ratio of Facebook engagements to Twitter shares decreasing by 60%. I

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  9. Inoculating Against Fake News About COVID-19

    Sander van der Linden, Jon Roozenbeek, Josh Compton · 2020 · Frontiers in Psychology · 637 citations

    The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been accompanied by a large amount of misleading and false information about the virus, especially on social media. In this article, we explore the coronavirus “infodemic” and how behavioral scientists may seek to address this problem. We detail the scope of the problem and discuss the negative influence that COVID-19 misinformation can have on the widespread adoption of health protective behaviors in the population. In response, we explore how insights from the behavioral sciences can be leveraged to manage an effective societal response to curb the spread of misinformation about the virus. In particular, we discuss the theory

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  10. Combating Fake News

    Karishma Sharma, Feng Qian, He Jiang, et al. · 2019 · ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology · 516 citations

    The proliferation of fake news on social media has opened up new directions of research for timely identification and containment of fake news and mitigation of its widespread impact on public opinion. While much of the earlier research was focused on identification of fake news based on its contents or by exploiting users’ engagements with the news on social media, there has been a rising interest in proactive intervention strategies to counter the spread of misinformation and its impact on society. In this survey, we describe the modern-day problem of fake news and, in particular, highlight the technical challenges associated with it. We discuss existing methods and techniques applicable t

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  12. Teens’ Motivations to Spread Fake News on WhatsApp

    Paula Herrero-Diz, Jesús Conde-Jiménez, Salvador Reyes de Cózar · 2020 · Social Media + Society · 78 citations

    Younger people are exposed to misinformation that circulates rapidly on their mobile devices through instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp. Under the guise of news, an attractive format and outrage discourse, fake news appeal to their emotions by inviting them to distribute them impulsively. All of this is supported by a device—the mobile phone—in which the action of sharing is a matter of trust. Therefore, they are less likely to check a piece of content before resending it if it comes from a contact in their personal address book. To understand young people’s habits when receiving informative content through WhatsApp and the reasons why they choose to share it or not, this study

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  14. The Geometry of Misinformation: Embedding Twitter Networks of Users Who Spread Fake News in Geometrical Opinion Spaces

    Pedro Ramaciotti Morales, Manon Berriche, Jean-Philippe Cointet · 2023 · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · 3 citations

    To understand why internet users spread fake news online, many studies have focused on individual drivers, such as cognitive skills, media literacy, or demographics. Recent findings have also shown the role of complex socio-political dynamics, highlighting that political polarization and ideologies are closely linked to a propensity to participate in the dissemination of fake news. Most of the existing empirical studies have focused on the US example by exploiting the self-reported or solicited positioning of users on a dichotomous scale opposing liberals with conservatives. Yet, left-right polarization alone is insufficient to study socio-political dynamics when considering non binary and m

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  15. Mapping fake news and misinformation in media: A two-decade bibliometric review of emerging trends

    Vijesh Vijayan, Temin Thomas, Princy D. Nellanat · 2025 · Insight - News Media · 2 citations

    The rapid proliferation of fake news and misinformation poses significant challenges to media trust, public decision-making, and societal cohesion in the digital age. This study employs a bibliometric analysis to systematically map the scholarly landscape surrounding fake news and misinformation across media platforms, focusing on social media’s pivotal role in shaping public perception and trust. Utilizing data from the Scopus database, the study analyzes 560 documents published between 2005 and 2025, uncovering trends in annual scientific production, leading sources, author contributions, and geographical distribution. Key bibliometric indicators, including keyword co-occurrence networks a

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  16. Curtailing the spread of fake news: Antecedents of citizens’ intention to correct misinformation on social media

    Beatriz Jordá, Manuel Goyanes, Lorena González-Manzano · 2026 · Communications · 1 citations

    Abstract There are severe concerns over the widespread presence of fake news on social media and the vulnerability of citizens to its influence. Prior research on fake news has largely focused on the potential threat it poses to democracy, and has payed less attention to an opposing behavior that has emerged in parallel and mitigates its effects: citizens’ corrective actions. This study seeks to examine the sociopolitical antecedents that drive citizens to correct fake news on social media. Drawing on panel survey data from Spain (T 2 = 570), we explore the role that using social media for news, cross-cutting poli

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  18. Os desafios jurídicos da limitação da liberdade de expressão nas redes sociais frente à disseminação de fake news no Brasil

    Hellen Assis dos Santos, Jakeline Nogueira Pinto de Araújo · 2025 · RCMOS - Revista Científica Multidisciplinar O Saber

    This work analyzes the legal challenges related to limiting freedom of expression on social media in the face of the dissemination of fake news in Brazil, a relevant and current topic in the context of digital expansion and the debate on internet regulation. The study aims to understand how it is possible to reconcile the protection of the essential core of freedom of expression with the need to combat disinformation in the digital environment, in light of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Federal Court and Bill No. 2,630/2020. To this end, a qualitative, deductive approach was adopted, based on bibliographic and documentary research, drawing on doctrine, scientific articles, the 1988 Federal

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  19. Analysis of news content clarifying misinformation and fake news by media professionals

    Sheel Nidhi Tripathi, Mukul Srivastava · 2021 · The Social Ion

    The rapid global spread of misinformation and false information which we call "infodemic", during Covid-19 is as severe as the Pandemic itself. But, we must not ignore the fact that Mediahas undoubtedly played a major role by not only bringing awareness but also pacifying the masses during the Pandemic on misinformation specially. From Print Media to Digital Media, the entire media fraternity had put its complete vigor and enthusiasm in fighting against this deadly evil whether it is through the presentation of News or clarifying the myth and preventing the misinformation to spread. Keeping this in light, the main aim of this study is to bring forth the role of media professionals in fightin

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  20. The Psychology of Misinformation: How People Process Fake News on Social Media

    Abida Kalsoom · 2025 · ACADEMIA International Journal for Social Sciences

    This study explores the psychological underpinnings of misinformation processing on social media, focusing on the role of cognitive biases—specifically confirmation bias and motivated reasoning—in shaping individuals’ belief in fake news. Using an experimental design, 200 participants were exposed to both real and fabricated news articles, with belief levels assessed before and after exposure. The findings reveal a strong positive correlation between cognitive bias scores and susceptibility to misinformation, confirming that individuals with higher bias levels are more likely to accept and trust false information. Regression analysis demonstrated that confirmation bias significantly heighten

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  21. AI’s Role in Regulating Fake News and Misinformation on Social Media in West Bengal, 2014–2024

    Mahamudul Hasan Gayen · 2025 · International Journal of Politics and Media

    From 2014 to 2024, West Bengal’s social media ecosystem, encompassing over 50 million users on platforms like WhatsApp, X, and Instagram, has amplified fake news and misinformation, intensifying political polarization and communal tensions. This narrative review examines Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) role in mitigating these issues through natural language processing (NLP), visual content verification, and predictive modeling, focusing on key events like the 2016 Dhulagarh riots, the 2020 public health crisis, and the 2024 Murshidabad violence. AI has enabled rapid detection and containment of false narratives, yet it faces challenges such as Bengali dialect complexities, algorithmic biases

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  22. Fake News Detection: Mining Social Media Data to Detect and Classify Misinformation

    Raji N · 2025 · International Journal of Information Technology Research Studies (IJITRS)

    The proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms poses significant challenges to information integrity and democratic discourse. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of computational approaches for fake news detection, examining current methodologies that leverage natural language processing, machine learning, and network analysis to identify and classify misinformation. Through a systematic review of empirical studies published between 2017 and 2024, we identify key features and techniques used in fake news detection systems, evaluate their effectiveness, and discuss limitations and future research directions. Our findings reveal that ensemble methods combining linguist

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