Slow Down: How Artificial Delays May Reduce the Perceived Credibility and Spread of Fake News

Sharing is a critical feature of social media, enabling users to amplify posts quickly and easily; however, this ease of sharing contributes to spreading fake news (FN). The proliferation of FN has posed significant challenges to public discourse, influencing politics and undermining trust in the media. Traditional approaches to combatting FN have focused on detection and user education but have not entirely stemmed the tide. We introduce a mitigation approach implementing artificial delays (ADs) between viewing headlines and content on social media. We propose that the delay will trigger System 2 instead of System 1 processing and that this shift will reduce the perceived credibility and spread of FN. We propose a behavioral experiment in which participants will evaluate a combination of fake and real news after being assigned to experience 8-second, 4-second, or no delays. This approach leverages user empowerment, potentially serving as a supplement to existing strategies.