Correcting misinformation about the Russia-Ukraine War reduces false beliefs but does not change views about the War.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science

Communication*; Russia ; Humans ; Ukraine ; Armed Conflicts ; Attitude ; Estonia ; Kazakhstan ; Republic of Belarus ; Culture ; Male ; Female

We report results from simultaneous experiments conducted in late 2022 in Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. The experiments focus on fact-checking misinformation supportive of Russia in the Russia-Ukraine War. Meta-analysis makes clear that fact-checking misinformation reduces belief in pro-Kremlin false claims. Effects of fact-checks are not uniform across countries; our meta-analytic estimate is reliant on belief accuracy increases observed in Russia and Ukraine. While fact-checks improve belief accuracy, they do not change respondents' attitudes about which side to support in the War. War does not render individuals hopelessly vulnerable to misinformation-but fact-checking misinformation is unlikely to change their views toward the conflict.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Porter et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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Date Created: 20240923 Date Completed: 20240924 Latest Revision: 20241213

20241213

PMC11419341

10.1371/journal.pone.0307090

39312501