research-article

Reading Between the Lies: A Classification Scheme of Types of Reply to Misinformation in Public Discussion Threads

Authors:

George Buchanan,

Stephann Makri,

Dana McKayAuthors Info & Claims

CHIIR '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

Pages 243 - 253

https://doi.org/10.1145/3498366.3505823

Published: 14 March 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Online misinformation is a fiendish problem. Demonstrably false information propagates faster and more widely than truth and this has heralded a technological arms race. One possible mechanism for addressing misinformation is social: there is evidence seeing misinformation being challenged can ‘inoculate’ a reader against it. To date, no research has examined how discussions sparked by misinformation play out; What are the different ways in which people reply to posts containing misinformation? How does the discussion flow in each case? Are there differences between platforms? We address these questions through an inductive qualitative analysis of discussion threads on three public discussion platforms (Twitter, YouTube and two news sites) and on three topics (COVID, Brexit and climate change). We present a classification scheme of types of replies to misinformation, and show that replies show different patterns between platforms. Knowing how people reply to posts that contain misinformation enriches our knowledge of ‘human misinformation interaction,’ and provides an understanding of how socio-technical factors in platform design can reduce the risk of misinformation spreading.

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Cited By

Makri SWillson R(2025)Current Trends in Information Behavior Research: Expanding Beyond Search, Seeking, Finding and BehaviorEncyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00172-3(493-500)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00172-3
Ernst M(2024)Identifying textual disinformation using Large Language ModelsProceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638315(453-456)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638315

Index Terms

Reading Between the Lies: A Classification Scheme of Types of Reply to Misinformation in Public Discussion Threads
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
2. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHIIR '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 2022

399 pages

ISBN:9781450391863

DOI:10.1145/3498366

General Chairs:
David Elsweiler
University of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
,
Udo Kruschwitz
University of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
,
Bernd Ludwig
University of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany

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Cited By

Makri SWillson R(2025)Current Trends in Information Behavior Research: Expanding Beyond Search, Seeking, Finding and BehaviorEncyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00172-3(493-500)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00172-3
Ernst M(2024)Identifying textual disinformation using Large Language ModelsProceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638315(453-456)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638315

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