It was found that fact-checking false statements made by Donald Trump proved effective for both Trump and anti-Trump supporters. Because the remarks made by Trump did not necessarily challenge the personal beliefs of the participants, the results coincide with the attitude-protection hypothesis.

Effectiveness of Fact-Checking on Statements made by Donald Trump

Fact-checking was found to be effective in correcting participants' beliefs regardless of partisanship. When fact-checking corrections outweighed affirmations, participants reported less voting support for the source also regardless of partisanship.

Effectiveness of Fact-Checking and Impact on Voting Support in Australia

Overall, fact-checking has been found to positively influence beliefs. Although, there are differences in effectiveness depending on the type of fact-checking message, pre-existing beliefs, and inclusion of visual elements. 

Ohio State University, Columbus

The process of determining the accuracy of information. Often performed and published by professional fact checkers such as Politifact or Snopes.

Fact Checking

Walter, N., Cohen, J., Holbert, R. L., & Morag, Y. (2020). Fact-Checking: A meta-analysis of what works and for whom. Political Communication, 37(3), 350–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1668894

Fact-Checking: A meta-analysis of what works and for whom

Software used to flag fake news, which is often detected either by independent fact-checkers or crowdsourcing algorithms because of the fact the manually flagging fake news can be difficult.

Fact Checking Flags

Criteria for Evaluating the Truth of a Message

The Schema-plus-tag model relates to fact checking because it posits the idea that people may forget the link between the negation of the fact check and the false claim it is debunking.

Schema-plus-tag Model and Fact Checking

Effectiveness of Fact-Checking

Individuals often only share fact-checks online when they align with their political views or other pre-existing beliefs.

The Partisanship of Sharing Fact-Checks

Fact-checking is not scalable as it requires substantial time and effort, warnings are only put on blantly false news, and it often fails to reach the intended audience. 

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