Abstract

Social media companies and civic society rely heavily on fact-checking to counter misinformation. While numerous studies have shown the efficacy of single-shot corrective interventions, the effects of sustained exposure to fact-checking information in a realistic social media environment have yet to be tested. In this study, we conduct a one-month field intervention implemented on a widely used social media platform to analyze the causal effect of substantially increasing users’ exposure to fact-checking accounts and content on resilience to misinformation and attitudinal outcomes. In our design, Twitter users will be randomly assigned to an intervention group that will have a new timeline in their accounts composed of a pre-curated list of fact-checking organizations added to the top of their Twitter feeds, and a control group where nothing is added. Over a four-week period, participants’ compliance with the intervention will be consistently assessed, and two survey waves will measure outcomes of interest.