Combating Health Misinformation Through Fact-Checking: The Role of Active Versus Passive Social Media Involvement

Health information fact-checking has been identified as a potential solution to combat the spread of misinformation on social media. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what factors are associated with individuals' fact-checking behaviors on health (mis)information. This study examined how two types of social media involvement (active vs. passive) affected individuals' fact-checking behaviors. An online survey was conducted to collect the data and test the hypotheses. The results indicated that passive and active social media involvement were negatively and positively associated with health information fact-checking, respectively. Further analysis revealed that the association between the two ways of social media involvement and health information fact-checking was mediated by social media fatigue and moderated by self-perceived social media information literacy. These findings can help us to understand the complex effects of social media involvement on fact-checking behavior, and provide guidance to design campaigns aimed at promoting health information fact-checking.