Interdisciplinary Hub on Digitisation and Society, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Institute of Computing and Information Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2024 May 29;19(5):e0302323. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302323. eCollection 2024.
Social media platform's lack of control over its content made way to the fundamental problem of misinformation. As users struggle with determining the truth, social media platforms should strive to empower users to make more accurate credibility judgements. A good starting point is a more accurate perception of the credibility of the message's source. Two pre-registered online experiments (N = 525;N = 590) were conducted to investigate how verified source information affects perceptions of Tweets (study 1) and generic social media posts (study 2). In both studies, participants reviewed posts by an unknown author and rated source and message credibility, as well as likelihood of sharing. Posts varied by the information provided about the account holder: (1) none, (2) the popular method of verified source identity, or (3) verified credential of the account holder (e.g., employer, role), a novel approach. The credential was either relevant to the content of the post or not. Study 1 presented the credential as a badge, whereas study 2 included the credential as both a badge and a signature. During an initial intuitive response, the effects of these cues were generally unpredictable. Yet, after explanation how to interpret the different source cues, two prevalent reasoning errors surfaced. First, participants conflated source authenticity and message credibility. Second, messages from sources with a verified credential were perceived as more credible, regardless of whether this credential was context relevant (i.e., virtual lab coat effect). These reasoning errors are particularly concerning in the context of misinformation. In sum, credential verification as tested in this paper seems ineffective in empowering users to make more accurate credibility judgements. Yet, future research could investigate alternative implementations of this promising technology.
社交媒体平台对其内容缺乏控制，这导致了错误信息这一根本问题的出现。由于用户在确定真相方面存在困难，社交媒体平台应该努力赋予用户做出更准确可信度判断的能力。一个好的起点是更准确地感知信息源的可信度。本研究通过两个预先注册的在线实验（N=525；N=590）来调查验证后的源信息如何影响对推文（研究 1）和一般社交媒体帖子（研究 2）的感知。在这两项研究中，参与者都查看了一位不知名作者发布的帖子，并对来源和信息可信度以及分享意愿进行了评分。帖子的信息提供方式各不相同：（1）不提供任何信息，（2）使用验证源身份的常用方法，或（3）验证账户持有者的凭证（例如雇主、角色），这是一种新颖的方法。凭证与帖子的内容相关或不相关。研究 1 将凭证作为徽章展示，而研究 2 则将凭证同时作为徽章和签名展示。在初始直观反应中，这些线索的效果通常是不可预测的。然而，在解释如何解释不同的源线索之后，出现了两个普遍的推理错误。首先，参与者将源真实性和信息可信度混为一谈。其次，无论验证凭证是否与上下文相关（即虚拟实验室外套效应），来自具有验证凭证的来源的信息都被认为更可信。这些推理错误在错误信息的背景下尤为令人担忧。总之，本文测试的凭证验证似乎无法赋予用户做出更准确可信度判断的能力。然而，未来的研究可以探索这种有前途的技术的替代实现方式。
