Conference Paper: “Real or Fake? User Behavior and Attitudes Related to Determining the Veracity of Social Media Posts”

The following conference paper was recently posted on arXiv.

Title

Real or Fake? User Behavior and Attitudes Related to Determining the Veracity of Social Media Posts

Authors

Linda Plotnick
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Starr Hiltz
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Sukeshini Grandhi
Eastern Connecticut State

Julie Dugdale
University of Grenoble

Source

via arXiv

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM ASIA PACIFIC 2018)

Abstract

Citizens and Emergency Managers need to be able to distinguish ”fake” (untrue) news posts from real news posts on social media during disasters. This paper is based on an online survey conducted in 2018 that produced 341 responses from invitations distributed via email and through Facebook. It explores to what extent and how citizens generally assess whether postings are ”true” or ”fake,” and describes indicators of the trustworthiness of content that users would like. The mean response on a semantic differential scale measuring how frequently users attempt to verify the news trustworthiness (a scale from 1-never to 5-always) was 3.37. The most frequent message characteristics citizens’ use are grammar and the trustworthiness of the sender. Most respondents would find an indicator of trustworthiness helpful, with the most popular choice being a colored graphic. Limitations and implications for assessments of trustworthiness during disasters are discussed.

Direct to Full Text
12 pages; PDF.

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