Fact-checking flagging in the age of AI

This study aims to investigate the effects of users’ conspiracy mentality and national context on the effectiveness of AI-driven fact-checking flags. Effectiveness is conceptualized as the ability to reduce users’ belief in and intention to share fake news. A pre-test–post-test online experiment was conducted with 166 participants even divided across Singapore and China. Three key findings could be gleaned from this paper. First, users with low conspiracy mentality were more likely to reduce their belief in and willingness to share fake news after being exposed to the AI-driven fact-checking flags. Second, the effectiveness of AI-driven fact-checking flags did not differ significantly between users in Singapore and China. Third, users’ conspiracy mentality and their national context did not exert any interaction effect on the effectiveness of the AI-driven fact-checking flags.