The Relation of Online Behavioral Response to Fake News Exposure and Detection Accuracy

Abstract

Using a Fake News test consisting of mixed legitimate and misleading news headlines, this study investigated and explored how the behavioral responses of users (N=153) to false headlines are associated with their ability to detect content legitimacy. The behavioral responses were (a) report the content, (b) engage in debate/discussion, or (c) simply ignore it. The results revealed that the subjects who engaged in a discussion have higher detection accuracy than the mere reporters. The participants who simply ignored the deceptive content performed the poorest while those who performed both reporting and discussion registered with the highest accuracy. The intended target audience of this paper are information scientists, digital forensic professionals, communication experts, policymakers, and other scholars possibly seeking references on this subject.