Hybrid Self-Repairs in Everyday Misinformation Sharing

Abstract

Recent studies on counteracting misinformation have emphasized correcting others that people believe share misinformation. There is also an impression that misinformation only spreads through a single platform. This study, in response, unfolds the repair work that social media users perform to self-correct everyday misinformation they have shared through different settings. Based on interview data from Hanoi, Vietnam, the findings suggest the importance of personalized corrections targeted at people the sharers believe were directly affected by the misinformation, as reflected in online apologizing and deleting posts containing misinformation, together with phone-calling and talking in private and small group settings. The existing digital infrastructures and suprastructures where the users are located allow such hybrid repairs to misinformation to occur. In tandem, the findings demonstrate the collective responsibility and humility underlying interactions with everyday misinformation in a collectivistic ecosystem. These findings potentially offer insights to create algorithmic reminders that can personally stimulate the sharer to trace the misinformation to people and how.