The mediating role of comments' credibility in influencing cancer cure misperceptions and social sharing

Purpose: The rise of fake news is an increasing issue for cancer patients. Specifically, the use of cannabis as a cure for cancer is the most shared social media content regarding alternative cancer treatments (Shi, Siyu, Arthur R. Brant, Aaron Sabolch & Erqi Pollom. 2019. False news of a cannabis cancer cure. Cureus 11(1). e3918:10.7759/cureus.3918). To better understand the relationship between fake news, perceived credibility, social sharing, and belief in health misinformation, we conducted an online experiment in the United States to explore how people react to fake cancer news on Facebook. Design/methodology/approach: A four-condition between-subjects online experiment was conducted to examine whether the perceived credibility of information and comments serve as mediating factors to influence misperceptions and social sharing of cancer misinformation. Findings: We find that it is the comments' credibility rather than information credibility that acts as a mediator between the effects of exposure to variations of comments on cancer treatment misperceptions and social sharing intentions. Practical implications: Our study provides important insights into correcting health misinformation on social media. Findings demonstrate the importance of healthcare professionals and organizations engaging with misleading and potentially harmful misinformation posted. Additionally, practitioners need to provide training to enhance individuals' media literacy to better discern credible health information from misinformation on social media. Value: The study advances prior misinformation correction and credibility literature. Theoretically, we find that perceived comments' credibility act as a mediator in mitigating the spread of fake news. Furthermore, exposure to variations of corrective comments (vs. peers' supportive comments) increased cancer cure misperceptions via comments' credibility, a backfire effect indicating that cancer cure misperceptions persisted, were complicated, and difficult to correct.