There is broad bipartisan support among self-identified liberals and conservatives that social media companies should add warning labels to posts that contain misleading information, or that could lead to the spread of misinformation, data from a new study by Northeastern researchers in the College of Arts, Media and Design shows.
Much of the polling on content labeling has been conducted around the U.S. presidential election. But the results of the national survey, published on Wednesday, may speak to new concerns about misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly surrounding the use of vaccines and other health protocols, says John Wihbey, associate professor of journalism and media innovation at Northeastern and co-author of the study.
"We're in a new moment, in a new phase of the pandemic—a moment where we can get a slightly purer sense of what the public thinks about these issues," Wihbey says.
Over the last several years, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook began labeling millions of posts as misinformation, including some from former president Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended from the platforms in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building that was perpetrated by his supporters.
Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud during last year's presidential election, which have been debunked, and the insurrection that followed sparked a fierce debate over the responsibility of tech companies in monitoring what...
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