Popups, Credibility, and the Spread of Misinformation

The desire to “debunk” false information is a shared goal among government, social media platforms, and society. How can organizations determine whether a debunking technique is effective? Noting that simply debunking misinformation may not affect its spread, the user actions (clicking or not clicking on like, share, or comment) on postings need to be studied independently from whether a user finds a posting credible. New debunking techniques are routinely adopted social media platforms. Although popup warnings have been available for quite some time, these warnings have been newly repurposed by some platforms as a debunking tool. As such, this study focused on the effects of message popup warnings on credibility and effectiveness (user actions or inactions).