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ABSTRACT
The proliferation of fake news on social media has become a major societal and political problem. Meanwhile, social media platforms have started to require identity verification from users and label the verified users with a verification badge, making users more responsible for their online behavior. In this study, we empirically investigate two research questions: 1) What is the impact of identity verification on users’ propensity to post fake news? and 2) How does a verification badge moderate the impact of identity verification? Results suggest that while identity verification without a verification badge has a negative impact on users’ posting of fake news, this impact is significantly weakened when users are granted a verification badge after identity verification. Given the criticisms on identity verification policies, these findings underscore both the potential upsides and risks for social media platforms seeking to combat fake news through identity verification techniques.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For example, Twitter has adopted four policies: mandatory verification with no verification badges for certain users (e.g., suspicious users), voluntary verification with no verification badges in certain cases (e.g., account security), mandatory verification with a verification badge for accounts that are considered to be influential, and voluntary verification with a verification badge if a user opts to do so. (https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-verified-accounts)
2 Although sometimes a user often merely copies a message from other sources, we still consider this behavior as “posting” in our study if the post appears as stand-alone without citing another source. Our rationale is that in this case, the user presents herself to other users as the author who originally creates the post, taking the same level of responsibility as the original creator and a similar risk of unwanted consequences.
7 To pass this verification process, users need to supply a valid phone number to the platform and promptly enter a 4-digit code sent to that phone number.
8 During October 2011 - January 2012, the platform required users to pass the first verification policy (verification without a verification badge) by restricting them from posting, sharing, and commenting at the platform (Newhua 2012). During February 2012 - March 2012, the platform changed its policy by requiring unverified users to pass the second verification policy (verification with a verification badge).
9 One might argue that fake posts could be posted by social bots that are controlled by computer algorithms and take no responsibility. After manually checking the profile of fake news creators in our sample, we are assured that the majority of the fake news creators in our sample are not bots as we clearly see they have real fans who organically interact with their posts. One potential reason is that our study focuses on fake news creators who have been reported to the platform by other users. In this case, those fake news authors should have real audiences and be less likely to be social bots.
10 Weibo has 340 million active monthly users, but only 30,000 fake news have been reported in 7 years.
11 A key assumption here is that the determination of fake news on Weibo is largely accurate. To validate this assumption, we randomly selected 200 fake news from our sample and manually validate them by investigating the legitimacy of the evidence provided by the accusers of each fake news. Despite a few ones about personal affairs that we cannot validate with external sources, the majority of the fake news are confirmed as fake.
12 As the platform does not report users’ sharing of fake news, we identity whether a shared post is fake or not by matching the content of the post to that of all fake news disclosed on the platform.
13 In the main analysis, we set the period of the exogenous shock to Oct. 2011-Mar. 2012. Considering that the platform pushed its verification policies more intensively during the last two months of the exogenous shock (Feb. 2012 - March 2012) (see ), we replicate our analysis with this shorter period as the timeframe of the exogenous shock (Section Contributions). Results are consistent.
14 Wenjuan.com boasts over 600,000 users and has helped over 100 million online participants to be reached by companies, media, governments and colleges. Its customers include Alibaba, Tsinghua University, and other well-known corporations and institutions.
15 We note that the platform did not remove the first verification method after the second one was introduced. While data suggest that most users verified their accounts with only the second method after February 2011, some users still verified with the first method after they already verified with the second method, potentially due to a misunderstanding of the policies. We had 86 such users in our sample, who passed the second verification policy and later passed the first verification policy again.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Shuting (Ada) Wang
Shuting (Ada) Wang (corresponding author) is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Zicklin School of Business of Baruch College, City University of New York. She received her PhD in Management Information Systems from Temple University. Dr. Wang’s research examines the impact of social media on the businesses and society and her work has been mentioned by multiple media such as NPR and BizPhilly. Her work has been published in leading journals, such as MIS Quarterly.
Min-Seok Pang
Min-Seok Pang is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems and Milton F. Stauffer Research Fellow at Fox School of Business, Temple University. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from University of Michigan. Dr. Pang’s research interests include, among others, strategic management of information technology in the public sector, and technology-enabled public policies. His research has been published in Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Strategic Management Journal. He serves as an Associate Editor for MIS Quarterly and Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Dr. Pang has received several awards for his research and teaching.
Paul A. Pavlou
Paul A. Pavlou is the Dean of the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. He is also the Cullen Distinguished Chair Professor of Information Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Dr. Pavlou’s research has been cited about 68,000 times according to Google Scholar, and he was recognized among the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters based on an analysis of “Highly Cited” authors in Economics & Business for 2002-2012.