Page - 199 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

199Does Debunking Work? Correcting COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media against misinformation72 and simply reminding them to think about accuracy before sharing.73 A growing body of literature has found that, in general, people want to be accurate and want to share only factual material.74 Most users do not fall for or share misinformation due to a malevolent agenda or, even, a partisan bias.75 If we can nudge people to think about accuracy before they share social media content, we may be able to have a significant impact on the spread of misin- formation.76 A 2020 study that specifically looked at misinformation in the context of the coronavirus found exactly this effect, concluding (2019) 63:3 J Broadcasting & Electronic Media 415 at 429: “[A]dditional educa- tional campaigns to inform citizens about mainstream news media operations could yield significant benefits.” See also Viren Swami et al, “Analytic Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories” (2014) 133:3 Cognition 572. 72. See e.g. Jon Roozenbeek & Sander van der Linden, “The New Science of Prebunk- ing: How to Inoculate against the Spread of Misinformation” (7 October 2019), online (blog): BMC  On  Society <http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-society/2019/ 10/07/the-new-science-of-prebunking-how-to-inoculate-against-the-spread-of- misinformation/>; Jon Roozenbeek & Sander van der Linden, “Fake News Game Confers Psychological Resistance against Online Misinformation” (2019) 5:65 Palgrave Communications at abstract, DOI: 10.1057/s41599-019-0279-9>: “We provide initial evidence that people’s ability to spot and resist misinformation improves after gameplay [which is teaching about misinformation], irrespective of education, age, political ideology, and cognitive style.” 73. Bence Bago, David G Rand & Gordon Pennycook, “Fake News, Fast and Slow: Deliberation Reduces Belief in False (But Not True) News Headlines” J Experi- mental Psychology: General, Advance online publication, online: NCBI <https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31916834> at abstract: “Our data suggest that, in the context of fake news, deliberation facilitates accurate belief formation and not partisan bias.” 74. Emma Young, “Most People Who Share ‘Fake News’ Do Care About the Accuracy of News Items—They’re Just Distracted” (16 January 2020), online: Research Digest  (The  British  Psychological  Society) <https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/01/16/ most-people-who-share-fake-news-do-care-about-the-accuracy-of-news-items- theyre-just-distracted/>. 75. Gordon Pennycook & David G Rand, “Lazy, Not Biased: Susceptibility to Partisan Fake News is Better Explained by Lack of Reasoning Than By Motivated Reasoning” (2019) 188 Cognition 39 at abstract: “Our findings therefore suggest that susceptibility to fake news is driven more by lazy thinking than it is by par- tisan bias per se—a finding that opens potential avenues for fighting fake news.” 76. See e.g. Lisa Fazio, “Pausing to Consider Why a Headline is True or False Can Help Reduce the Sharing of False News” (10 February 2020), online: Misinfor- mation Review <https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/pausing-reduce- false-news/>: “This research suggests that forcing people to pause and think can reduce shares of false information”; Gordon Pennycook et al, “Understanding and Reducing the Spread of Misinformation Online” (25 November 2019) at abstract [working paper], online: <https://psyarxiv.com/3n9u8/>: “we find that subtly inducing people to think about the concept of accuracy increases the qual- ity of the news they share.”