Internet users beware, you follow online health rumors (more than counter-rumors) irrespective of risk propensity and prior endorsement

Research on false information clarification mechanism among government, opinion leaders, and Internet users — Based on differential game theory

This article considers the government, opinion leaders, and Internet users to be a system for correcting false information, and it considers the problem of correcting false information that arises in the aftermath of major emergencies. We use optimal control theory and differential game theory to construct differential game models of decentralized decision-making, centralized decision-making, and subsidized decision-making. The solutions to these models and their numerical simulations show that the government, opinion leaders, and Internet users exercise cost-subsidized decision-making instead of decentralized decision-making. The equilibrium strategies, local optimal benefits, and overall optimal benefits of the system achieve Pareto improvement. Given the goal of maximizing the benefits to the system under centralized decision-making, the equilibrium results are Pareto-optimal. The research here provides a theoretical basis for dealing with the mechanism of correcting false information arising from major emergencies, and our conclusions provide methodological support for the government to effectively deal with such scenarios.

Optimal Control of False Information Clarification System under Major Emergencies Based on Differential Game Theory

To further study the issue of false information classification on social platforms after major emergencies, this study regards opinion leaders and Internet users as a false-information classification system and constructs three differential game models of decentralized, centralized, and subsidized decision-making based on optimal control and differential game theory. Comparison analyses and numerical simulations of optimal equilibrium strategies and the optimal benefit between opinion leaders and Internet users, the optimal trajectory and the steady-state value of the total volume of real information, and the optimal benefit of the false information clarification system are carried out. It is found that under centralized decision-making, equilibrium strategy and total benefit of opinion leaders and Internet users, system total benefit, and total volume of real information can achieve Pareto optimality. Although subsidized decision-making fails to achieve Pareto optimality, with opinion leaders providing cost subsidies for Internet users, it is possible to reach relative Pareto improvement compared with decentralized decision-making.

The application of emotions, sharing motivations, and psychological distance in examining the intention to share COVID-19-related fake news

Purpose

Coronavirus disease 2019-related fake news consistently appears on social media. This study uses appraisal theory to analyze the impact of such rumors on individuals' emotions, motivations, and intentions to share fake news. Furthermore, the concept of psychological distance and construal level theory are used in combination with appraisal theory to compare toilet paper shortages and celebrity scandal rumors.

Design/methodology/approach

Data collected from 299 Taiwanese respondents to 150 toilet paper shortage-related and 149 celebrity gossip-related questionnaires were processed using partial least squares regression and multigroup analysis.

Findings

In both cases, surprise is felt most intensely. However, unlike in the celebrity fake news scenario, worry plays a prominent role in driving the altruistic sharing motivation related to the toilet paper shortage rumor. Furthermore, while emotional attributes (basic or self-conscious, concrete, or abstract) serve as a guide for how emotions change with psychological distance, the degree to which an emotion is relevant to the fake news context is key to its manifestation.

Originality/value

This study examines the impact of individuals' emotions on their motivations and intention to share fake news, applying the appraisal theory and the psychological distance concept in a single study to fake news sharing intention. It evaluates the relationship between psychological distance and emotions, revealing that it is not absolute and need not necessarily shift according to psychological distance change; rather, the relationship is context-sensitive.

Echo Chamber Effect in Rumor Rebuttal Discussions About COVID-19 in China: Social Media Content and Network Analysis Study

Background

The dissemination of rumor rebuttal content on social media is vital for rumor control and disease containment during public health crises. Previous research on the effectiveness of rumor rebuttal, to a certain extent, ignored or simplified the structure of dissemination networks and users’ cognition as well as decision-making and interaction behaviors.

Objective

This study aimed to roughly evaluate the effectiveness of rumor rebuttal; dig deeply into the attitude-based echo chamber effect on users’ responses to rumor rebuttal under multiple topics on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic; and evaluate the echo chamber’s impact on the information characteristics of user interaction content.

Methods

We used Sina Weibo’s application programming interface to crawl rumor rebuttal content related to COVID-19 from 10 AM on January 23, 2020, to midnight on April 8, 2020. Using content analysis, sentiment analysis, social network analysis, and statistical analysis, we first analyzed whether and to what extent there was an echo chamber effect on the shaping of individuals’ attitudes when retweeting or commenting on others’ tweets. Then, we tested the heterogeneity of attitude distribution within communities and the homophily of interactions between communities. Based on the results at user and community levels, we made comprehensive judgments. Finally, we examined users’ interaction content from three dimensions—sentiment expression, information seeking and sharing, and civility—to test the impact of the echo chamber effect.

Results

Our results indicated that the retweeting mechanism played an essential role in promoting polarization, and the commenting mechanism played a role in consensus building. Our results showed that there might not be a significant echo chamber effect on community interactions and verified that, compared to like-minded interactions, cross-cutting interactions contained significantly more negative sentiment, information seeking and sharing, and incivility. We found that online users’ information-seeking behavior was accompanied by incivility, and information-sharing behavior was accompanied by more negative sentiment, which was often accompanied by incivility.

Conclusions

Our findings revealed the existence and degree of an echo chamber effect from multiple dimensions, such as topic, interaction mechanism, and interaction level, and its impact on interaction content. Based on these findings, we provide several suggestions for preventing or alleviating group polarization to achieve better rumor rebuttal.