The Effect of Platform Intervention Policies on Fake News Dissemination and Survival: An Empirical Examination

• Published in: Journal of management information systems Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 898 - 930
• Main Authors: Ng, Ka Chung, Tang, Jie, Lee, Dongwon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.10.2021; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Centralization; Digital media; Dispersion; Dissemination; Fake News; Fake News Dissemination; Fake News Flag; Fake News Online; Flags; Forwarding Restriction Policy; Intervention; News; Online Disinformation; Owners; Platform Policies; Policy making; Propensity; Quasi-Experiment; Quasi-experimental methods; Social media; Social networks
• ISSN: 0742-1222; 1557-928X
• DOI: 10.1080/07421222.2021.1990612

Fake news on social media has become a serious problem, and social media platforms have started to actively implement various interventions to mitigate its impact. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of two platform interventions, namely a content-level intervention (i.e., a fake news flag that applies to a single post) and an account-level intervention (i.e., a forwarding restriction policy that applies to the entire account). Collecting data from China's largest social media platform, we study the impact of a fake news flag on three fake news dissemination patterns using a propensity score matching method with a difference-in-differences approach. We find that implementing a policy of using fake news flag influences the dissemination of fake news in a more centralized manner via direct forwards and in a less dispersed manner via indirect forwards, and that fake news posts are forwarded more often by influential users. In addition, compared with truthful news, fake news is disseminated in a less centralized and more dispersed manner and survives for a shorter period after a forwarding restriction policy is implemented. This study provides causal empirical evidence of the effect of a fake news flag on fake news dissemination. We also expand the literature on platform interventions to combat fake news by investigating a less studied account-level intervention. We discuss the practical implications of our results for social media platform owners and policymakers.