Exploring the Effectiveness of Social Truth Queries to Address Online Misinformation in a Polarized Context

ABSTRACT Social truth queries (STQs)—user replies that draw attention to the truth—have shown promise for reducing misinformation belief, but their effectiveness in polarized contexts remains unexplored. To address this gap, we conducted three experiments using fans of established sports team rivalries to manipulate group identity. Participants judged the truth of social media posts containing misinformation that appeared with or without STQ replies. We investigated whether STQs were effective when posted by in‐group or out‐group members (Experiment 1), in addressing in‐group‐ or out‐group‐favorable misinformation (Experiment 2), and across combinations of poster identity and misinformation favorability (Experiment 3). We found that STQs were similarly effective in reducing misinformation belief across STQ source and misinformation favorability, although follow‐up analysis revealed more robust effects in addressing out‐group (vs. in‐group) favorable misinformation. Taken together, our findings suggest that social truth queries are a promising intervention for addressing misinformation in polarized contexts.