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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.