Page - 189 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

189Does Debunking Work? Correcting COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media In reality, the backfire effect seems to be a relatively rare occur- rence.25 Indeed, Brendan Nyhan, the lead author of the 2010 study, has noted that their results often have “been overstated and oversold,”26 in part because their conclusions may be quite context specific.27 A 2019 comprehensive analysis of the available research concluded that the existing body of evidence—much of it published after the 2010 study—found no backfire effect and that “most recent studies now suggest that generally debunks can make beliefs in specific claims more accurate.”28 For example, a study published in 2019 found that “evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests. By and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their ideological commitments.”29 Another study from 2019 found that “debunking” works—if done using appropriate strategies (more on that below)—and “no evidence” that “rebutting science denialism in public discussions backfires, not even in vulnerable groups (for example, U.S. conservatives).”30 To be fair, motivated reasoning (constructing rationales to fit a pre-existing position) and other cognitive biases (for example, confirmation bias) have been shown to influence what information we see online and elsewhere.31 Still, for many areas of science, at least some research has found that differences in scientific belief are driven mostly by levels of 25. Indeed, some have gone so far as to call its existence a myth. See, for example, Laura Hazard Owen, “The ‘Backfire Effect’ Is Mostly a Myth” (22 March 2019), online: NiemanLab <https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/the-backfire-effect-is- mostly-a-myth-a-broad-look-at-the-research-suggests/>. 26. See 8 January 2018 tweet by lead author Brendan Nyhan, where he states: “[T]he research findings, including accounts of my own backfire effect paper with @jasonreifler, have often been overstated and oversold” (3 January 2020 at 8:21), online: Twitter <https://twitter.com/brendannyhan/status/948544775799607 296?lang=en>. 27. For example, see Sippitt, supra note 21 at 10, who notes that the experiment “pur- posefully covered a highly controversial topic in American politics [WMD in Iraq] where people would have prior beliefs” and as such “it’s arguably unsur- prising that individuals were unpersuaded by a single news item.” 28. See ibid at 5. 29. Thomas Wood & Ethan Porter, “The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence” (2019) 41 Political Behaviour 135. 30. Philipp Schmid & Cornelia Betsch, “Effective Strategies for Rebutting Science Denialism in Public Discussions” (2019) 3 Nature Human Behaviour 931 at abstract. 31. For example, see Dan Kahan, “The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It” in RA Scott and SM Kosslyn, eds, Emerging  Trends  in  the  Social  &  Behavioral  Sciences  (Wiley Library Online, 2016), DOI: <10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0417>.