Verma, Fleischmann, & Koltai (2017) found that participants were significantly more likely to trust information that contained a hyperlink to a fake news site if they actually clicked on the link versus if they saw the link to the fake news site but did not click on it.

Pepperdine University

Verma, Fleischmann, & Koltai (2017) performed an experiment in which they presented participants with simulated Twitter posts containing a scientific claim and one of the following: a hyperlink to a scientific article, a hyperlink to a mainstream media site, a hyperlink to a fake news site, a hidden hyperlink, or no hyperlink. They then compared how likely those with specific values were to click on or trust the different types of links.

Values and Trust in Different Sources of Information Experiment

Verma, N., Fleischmann, K., & Koltai, K.S. (2017). Human values and trust in scientific journals, the mainstream media and fake news. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 54, 426 - 435. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401046.

Human Values and Trust in Scientific Journals,
the Mainstream Media and Fake News

The majority of participants clicked on some but not all of the provided hyperlinks. The likelihood of one clicking on a hyperlink or the number of times they clicked on one of the links did not appear to be associated with any particular values.

Values and Trust in Different Sources of Information Experiment - Link Clicking Behavior

Trust in Fake News and Link Clicking Behavior

Verma, Fleischmann, & Koltai (2017) found that participants were significantly more likely to trust posts that contained a link to a scientific article, a mainstream media article, or a hidden hyperlink than they were to trust a post with a link to a fake news media article.

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