Media

Fighting misinformation with truth: Why mainstream news matters on social media

How can misinformation on social media be countered in the age of AI-generated content? This column uses an experiment conducted during the 2024 US presidential campaign involving 10,000 users of X to demonstrate that nudging users to think before sharing content can outperform fact-checking interventions in reducing misinformation. The experiment also reveals that users often struggle to distinguish true from false news, and that interventions are substantially more effective when users are exposed to ‘uncontroversial’ true news that they can reliably distinguish from false content. These findings suggest that fighting misinformation is not only about slowing the spread of falsehoods but also about ensuring the supply and visibility of credible information.