Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University.
Health Commun. 2021 Nov;36(13):1776-1784. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1794553. Epub 2020 Aug 6.
Social media poses a threat to public health by facilitating the spread of misinformation. At the same time, however, social media offers a promising avenue to stem the distribution of false claims - as evidenced by real-time corrections, crowdsourced fact-checking, and algorithmic tagging. Despite the growing attempts to correct misinformation on social media, there is still considerable ambiguity regarding the ability to effectively ameliorate the negative impact of false messages. To address this gap, the current study uses a meta-analysis to evaluate the relative impact of social media interventions designed to correct health-related misinformation ( = 24; = 6,086). Additionally, the meta-analysis introduces theory-driven moderators that help delineate the effectiveness of social media interventions. The mean effect size of attempts to correct misinformation on social media was positive and significant ( = 0.40, 95% CI [0.25, 0.55], =.0005) and a publication bias could not be excluded. Interventions were more effective in cases where participants were involved with the health topic, as well as when misinformation was distributed by news organizations (vs. peers) and debunked by experts (vs. non-experts). The findings of this meta-analysis can be used not only to depict the current state of the literature but also to prescribe specific recommendations to better address the proliferation of health misinformation on social media.
社交媒体通过促进错误信息的传播，对公共健康构成威胁。然而，与此同时，社交媒体提供了一个有希望的途径来阻止虚假声明的传播——这可以从实时更正、众包事实核查和算法标记中得到证明。尽管越来越多的人试图纠正社交媒体上的错误信息，但对于有效减轻虚假信息的负面影响的能力，仍然存在相当大的模糊性。为了解决这一差距，本研究使用荟萃分析来评估旨在纠正与健康相关的错误信息的社交媒体干预措施的相对影响（n=24；N=6086）。此外，荟萃分析引入了理论驱动的调节因素，有助于描绘社交媒体干预措施的有效性。在社交媒体上纠正错误信息的尝试的平均效应大小是积极且显著的（d=0.40，95%置信区间[0.25，0.55]，p=0.0005），且无法排除发表偏差。当参与者与健康主题有关，以及当错误信息由新闻机构（而非同行）传播并由专家（而非非专家）揭穿时，干预措施更有效。这项荟萃分析的结果不仅可以用来描绘当前文献的状况，还可以提出具体建议，以更好地解决社交媒体上健康错误信息的传播问题。
