Rumor verifications on Facebook: Click speech of likes, comments and shares

This paper seeks to answer the following research question: How do users of social networking sites react to rumor verifications? Rumor verifications refer to messages posted by Snopes, a website dedicated to verify rumors, to confirm the veracity of rumors as either true or false. Data were collected from Snopes' Facebook Fan Page. Users' reactions to rumor verifications on Facebook were examined through their click speech in the form of Likes, Comments and Shares. Users' reactions were studied as a function of two factors: rumor type (wish, dread or neutral), and verification verdict (true or false). Data analyses involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Results indicated that users' click speech of Likes and Shares differed significantly with respect to rumor type and verification verdict. Comments were found to contain personal opinion, emotive expression, and call-to-action. Based on these results, the paper offers four implications. It also points to a number of directions for future research.