Search results

Accurate information is the basis for well-informed decision-making, which is particularly challenging in the dynamic reality of a pandemic. Search engines are a major gateway for obtaining information, yet little is known about the quality and scientific accuracy of information answering conspiracy-related queries about COVID-19, especially outside of English-speaking countries and languages.

The authors conducted an algorithmic audit of Google Search, emulating search queries about COVID-19 conspiracy theories in 10 different locations and four languages (English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew) and used content analysis by native language speakers to examine the quality of the available information.

Searching the same conspiracies in different languages led to fundamentally different results. English had the largest share of 52% high-quality scientific information. The average quality score of the English-language results was significantly higher than in Russian and Arabic. Non-English languages had a considerably higher percentage of conspiracy-supporting content. In Russian, nearly 40% of the results supported conspiracies compared to 18% in English.

This study’s findings highlight structural differences that significantly limit access to high-quality, balanced, and accurate information about the pandemic, despite its existence on the Internet in another language. Addressing these gaps has the potential to improve individual decision-making collective outcomes for non-English societies.

Informational use of social media facilitates political engagement. Yet, there is also evidence of the perils of frequent political engagement in misinformation propagation. This study aims to examine the association between online political engagement, perceived exposure to misinformation, individuals’ cognitive characteristics and misinformation sharing.

In this paper, online surveys were conducted in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2).

Study 1 finds that online political engagement is positively associated with perceived exposure to and sharing of misinformation. Mediation analyses suggest that the relationship between online political engagement and misinformation sharing is mediated by perceived exposure to misinformation. Further, the likelihood of sharing misinformation is found to increase at higher levels of online political engagement, but those with low need for cognition (NFC) are more vulnerable to such sharing. Study 2 explores cognitive ability in place of NFC. The results follow similar patterns as Study 1 – online political engagement is linked to misinformation sharing via higher perceived exposure to misinformation. The authors also find that the tendency to share misinformation increases with frequent exposure to misinformation but those with lower cognitive ability are more prone to such sharing.

In both contexts, the data show that perceived exposure to misinformation mediates the relationship between online political engagement and misinformation sharing and those with low NFC and cognitive ability are more vulnerable. Overall, the findings offer insight into the mechanisms of political engagement and sharing misinformation.