Joshua Tucker

Dec 20, 2023 | nature.com | Joshua Tucker

Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to understanding belief in online misinformation1,2, with a particular focus on social networks. However, the dominant role of search engines in the information environment remains underexplored, even though the use of online search to evaluate the veracity of information is a central component of media literacy interventions3–5. Although conventional wisdom suggests that searching online when evaluating misinformation would reduce belief in it, there is little empirical evidence to evaluate this claim. Here, across five experiments, we present consistent evidence that online search to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the probability of believing them. To shed light on this relationship, we combine survey data with digital trace data collected using a custom browser extension. We find that the search effect is concentrated among individuals for whom search engines return lower-quality information. Our results indicate that those who search online to evaluate misinformation risk falling into data voids, or informational spaces in which there is corroborating evidence from low-quality sources. We also find consistent evidence that searching online to evaluate news increases belief in true news from low-quality sources, but inconsistent evidence that it increases belief in true news from mainstream sources. Our findings highlight the need for media literacy programmes to ground their recommendations in empirically tested strategies and for search engines to invest in solutions to the challenges identified here. Searching online to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles increases the probability of believing the false news articles.

Sep 11, 2023 | lawfaremedia.org | Talia Stroud |Joshua Tucker |Jen Patja Howell

How much influence do social media platforms have on American politics and society? It’s a tough question for researchers to answer—not just because it’s so big, but also because platforms rarely if ever provide all the data that would be needed to address the problem. A new batch of papers released in the journals Science and Nature marks the latest attempt to tackle this question, with access to data provided by Facebook’s parent company Meta.

Jul 14, 2023 | msn.com | Joshua Tucker

Jul 14, 2023 | msn.com | Joshua Tucker

When social media first burst onto the political scene in the early 2010s, it was hailed as a “liberation technology” that would accelerate the spread of democracy around the world. Yet in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. elections, experts instead asked, “Can democracy survive the internet?” The speed at which social media turned from savior to spoiler of democracy in less than five years was head-spinning.

Jun 14, 2023 | brookings.edu | Joshua Tucker