Post by Tom Stafford - Takahē

1y

Quantifying the Impact of Misinformation and Vaccine-Skeptical Content on Facebook
https://psyarxiv.com/nwsqa/
(working paper Allen, Watts, @Drand, 2023

Vaccine intentions reduced far more by sensationalised mainstream media stories about vaccine risks than by stories flagged by fact-checkers as misinformation

Abstract Researchers and public health officials have attributed low uptake of the COVID-19
vaccine in the US to social media misinformation. To evaluate this claim, we introduce a
framework combining lab experiments, crowdsourcing, and machine learning to estimate the
causal effect of 13,206 vaccine-related URLs shared on Facebook on US vaccination intentions.
Our model predicts this content reduced intentions by -2.3 percentage points (95% QI: -3.5, -1.0)
per US Facebook user. Strikingly, we estimate the impact of misinformation was 50X less than
that of content not flagged by fact-checkers that nonetheless expressed vaccine skepticism.
Although misinformation was significantly more harmful when viewed, its exposure on
Facebook was limited. In contrast, mainstream stories highlighting rare vaccine deaths both
increased vaccine hesitancy and were among Facebook’s most-viewed stories. Our work
suggests that curbing misinformation benefits public health, but highlights the need to scrutinize
factually correct but potentially misleading content.

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