Solutions and Challenges for Addressing Misinformation

Abstract

Research on mitigating the effects of misinformation has contributed to the development of multiple feasible interventions designed to reduce belief in, and sharing of, falsehoods. The authors review these interventions and discuss challenges and open questions for future research. First, they provide an overview of content-neutral and content-based interventions. Next, they discuss two practical challenges to deploying and assessing these interventions in the field: scalability and pushback against content moderation efforts due to perceived political bias. Finally, they highlight several open theoretical questions and common pitfalls of research on misinformation. In particular, they argue for critical evaluation of how interventions may be effective across different types of misinformative content, different key subpopulations, and different media and environmental contexts.