Social Correction on Social Media: A Quantitative Analysis of Comment Behaviour and Reliability

Abstract

Corrections given by ordinary social media users, also referred to as Social Correction have emerged as a viable intervention against misinformation as per the recent literature. However, little is known about how often users give disputing or endorsing comments and how reliable those comments are. An online experiment was conducted to investigate how users' credibility evaluations of social media posts and their confidence in those evaluations combined with online reputational concerns affect their commenting behaviour. The study found that participants exhibited a more conservative approach when giving disputing comments compared to endorsing ones. Nevertheless, participants were more discerning in their disputing comments than endorsing ones. These findings contribute to a better understanding of social correction on social media and highlight the factors influencing comment behaviour and reliability.