How Fairness, Effectiveness, and Intrusiveness Shape Public Support
Published:
Recent research on interventions to combat misinformation spread on social media, such as content or account moderation tools, typically assesses their effectiveness and sometimes looks at their popularity among users. However, little work has explored the factors influencing public support. Since social media platforms are unlikely to voluntarily implement measures that may drive away users, understanding why people either support or oppose these interventions is essential.
In this study, we surveyed over 1,000 active American social media users to gather their opinions on 10 commonly studied misinformation interventions. Participants were divided into two groups: one was told that social media companies would implement the measures, while the other was told that the government would.
We identified three main findings:
- The perceived fairness of an intervention was the most important factor, followed by perceived effectiveness and intrusiveness.
- Transparent interventions promoting user agency, like content labeling or fact-checking ads, were the most popular.
- Overall, women and Democrats supported interventions more than other demographic groups.
This research investigates how everyday people feel about misinformation on social media and the measures taken against it. Most interventions were widely popular: 5 of the 10 interventions surveyed received average support ratings of around 4 out of 5, with over 2/3 of participants in support. Only one intervention was generally unpopular (temporarily preventing users from reposting unviewed content). Additionally, men and Republicans were more likely to see interventions as unfair, possibly because they feel like posts from their demographic groups were more often targeted by these measures.
These findings indicate that platforms and policymakers should focus on creating fair, transparent measures that enhance user agency, such as warning labels instead of removing content without explanation. Social media platforms should also improve how they communicate the effectiveness of their interventions to users by using public dashboards or educational tools. Improving communication, education, and transparency could help build broader support for these measures and encourage their more consistent use.
Image Credit: Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash
