Effects of COVID-19 Fact-Checking on Youths’ Rectifying Behaviors in Chinese Social Media: The Third-Person Effect

Using a between-subjects experimental design with 660, this study investigated the impact of exposure and non-exposure to fact-checking on people’s rectifying behaviors in response to COVID-19 fake news. We found that participants who read COVID-19 fake news accompanied by true fact-checking information believed that the news stories had a greater impact on others than on themselves. This phenomenon is commonly known as the third-person effect (TPE). When exposed to COVID-19 fake news with fact-checking information (vs. fake news with no fact-checking information), youths perceived a less negative influence on themselves and consequently showed weaker intentions to correct fake news on social media. Conversely, they perceived that the fake news had a greater negative influence on others, leading to stronger support for regulating fake news. This study contributes to the existing literature on the third-person effect and fact-checking of fake news in non-Western social media environments.