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The recent development of COVID-19 vaccines has resulted in an abundance of vaccine-related news being shared on social media, a large proportion of which being misinformation. This research aims to conceptually replicate recent findings regarding the effectiveness of an online accuracy-nudge intervention on likelihood of sharing fake news. The proposed study is quantitative in methodology, with a 2 [condition (control, experimental)] x 2 [framing (positive, negative)] mixed experimental design. Participants will complete an online survey measuring the likelihood of sharing vaccine-related true and fake news headlines. Participants in the experimental condition will rate the accuracy of a politically neutral news headline unrelated to vaccines. Participants in the control condition will not complete this task. All participants will then report their likelihood of sharing both positively-framed and negatively-framed vaccine-related news headlines in order to assess the potential effect of framing on sharing behaviours. For the main effect of the accuracy nudge factor it is hypothesised that participants in the experimental condition will have greater news-sharing discernment (i.e. the difference in likelihood for each individual to share true vs fake news) as they are prompted to reflect on accuracy before sharing. For the main effect of the framing factor it is hypothesised that participants will have greater news-sharing discernment for the negative news than the positive news. It is hypothesised that the accuracy nudge intervention will soften the impact of the framing effect, with greater difference between sharing discernment for positive news vs negative news among participants in the control condition than in the experimental condition. It is hoped that findings of this study can assist with the creation of online interventions to reduce levels of vaccine-related fake news sharing.

Rationale False news – and their study – have flourished over the past five years. Indeed, although it is far from being a new phenomenon, the rise of social media and the near breakdown of traditional media has given it an unprecedented reach. As a result, research attempting to understand the spread of misinformation and to potentially curb its effects has proliferated, often showing how difficult it can be to retract false claims (Walter & Murphy, 2018). Attempts to reverse the effects of even a single exposure to misinformation are often only partially successful (e.g., Cook et al., 2017), when they do not altogether backfire (e.g., Seifert, 2002). Yet, research on fake news routinely exposes its participants to inaccurate or misleading information, presented in a setting that may inspire undue trust. The aim of this scoping review is thus to map out the reporting of existing ethical practices surrounding experimental exposures to false news, and to propose on this basis a set of best practices for future research.

The circulation of misinformation online is not new, but it has gained a new visibility since the 2016 US Presidential election and its spread across social media. This has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in an infodemic due to the mass sharing of information online. While social media has allowed people to remain informed, protected and connected throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also facilitated the dissemination of false information, creating distrust, and undermining public health responses. As such, understanding how individuals engage with misinformation, as well as the potential consequences of this engagement is essential for social, health, political and economic domains. Previous misinformation research has examined an array of misinformation-related outcomes, including sharing behaviours (e.g., Pennycook, McPhetres, Zhang, Lu & Rand, 2020), belief susceptibility (e.g., Pennycook, Cannon & Rand, 2018), false memories for fake news (e.g., Greene & Murphy, 2020) and behavioural consequences of fake news (e.g., Loomba, de Figueiredo, Piatek, de Graaf & Larson, 2021). Yet, to the best of our knowledge, a synthesis of the extent to which misinformation-related outcomes are examined within the literature is not currently available. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to synthesise the outcomes examined by misinformation research over the past five years. It is hoped that the findings of this review will shed light on under-studied areas of interest within the misinformation literature, thus guiding future research in the area.

Additional file 1: Supplemental materials.