References to unbiased sources increase the helpfulness of community fact-checks
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866910874181042176 |
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| author | Solovev, Kirill Pröllochs, Nicolas |
| author_facet | Solovev, Kirill Pröllochs, Nicolas |
| contents | Community-based fact-checking is a promising approach to address misinformation on social media at scale. However, an understanding of what makes community-created fact-checks helpful to users is still in its infancy. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of the helpfulness of community-created fact-checks. For this purpose, we draw upon a unique dataset of real-world community-created fact-checks and helpfulness ratings from X's (formerly Twitter) Community Notes platform. Our empirical analysis implies that the key determinant of helpfulness in community-based fact-checking is whether users provide links to external sources to underpin their assertions. On average, the odds for community-created fact-checks to be perceived as helpful are 2.70 times higher if they provide links to external sources. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the helpfulness of community-created fact-checks varies depending on their level of political bias. Here, we find that community-created fact-checks linking to high-bias sources (of either political side) are perceived as significantly less helpful. This suggests that the rating mechanism on the Community Notes platform successfully penalizes one-sidedness and politically motivated reasoning. These findings have important implications for social media platforms, which can utilize our results to optimize their community-based fact-checking systems. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_10560 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | References to unbiased sources increase the helpfulness of community fact-checks Solovev, Kirill Pröllochs, Nicolas Social and Information Networks Community-based fact-checking is a promising approach to address misinformation on social media at scale. However, an understanding of what makes community-created fact-checks helpful to users is still in its infancy. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of the helpfulness of community-created fact-checks. For this purpose, we draw upon a unique dataset of real-world community-created fact-checks and helpfulness ratings from X's (formerly Twitter) Community Notes platform. Our empirical analysis implies that the key determinant of helpfulness in community-based fact-checking is whether users provide links to external sources to underpin their assertions. On average, the odds for community-created fact-checks to be perceived as helpful are 2.70 times higher if they provide links to external sources. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the helpfulness of community-created fact-checks varies depending on their level of political bias. Here, we find that community-created fact-checks linking to high-bias sources (of either political side) are perceived as significantly less helpful. This suggests that the rating mechanism on the Community Notes platform successfully penalizes one-sidedness and politically motivated reasoning. These findings have important implications for social media platforms, which can utilize our results to optimize their community-based fact-checking systems. |
| title | References to unbiased sources increase the helpfulness of community fact-checks |
| topic | Social and Information Networks |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.10560 |