I’ll Share It When I Believe It! An Experimental Study on the Effects of Hateful and False Content on Credibility and Sharing Intention

Abstract

The spread of false and hateful messages poses one of the greatest challenges in the current communication ecosystem. Although both phenomena have been widely analyzed, few studies have examined their combined effects. Using an experimental study with 404 Spanish citizens, we aim to understand the mechanism through which the credibility of false and hateful messages affects the intention to share them. We observed that the presence of falsehood and/or hatred seems to reduce the credibility of a message, which in turn has an indirect decreasing effect on the intention to share it, potentially informing future media literacy strategies to combat the spread of such messages by reducing citizens’ propensity to believe them. Interestingly, a higher education level does not seem to increase resilience against these toxic discourses.