By rewarding engagement over accuracy, social media platforms foster the spread of misinformation. Likes and similar engagement reactions are a central form of feedback on most platforms and shape what users share. On the platforms, users quickly learn that sharing interesting, attention-grabbing content garners positive feedback, even when it is inaccurate. With repeated exposure to these social rewards, sharing interesting content—including interesting but inaccurate content—can become a habit. We review evidence for this reward-based learning and propose a simple redesign of platform rewards: adding a Trust button so users can reward accurate, reliable posts. Experimental evidence supports this approach: Users give Trusts to accurate posts more than inaccurate posts. Then, when they receive trust feedback, users increasingly share accurate content (even when less interesting) and reduce sharing of inaccurate but highly interesting posts. Because this intervention changes incentives, it is scalable, preserves user choice, and aligns with people’s stated goal of sharing accurate information. Misinformation interventions that overlook the role of social media incentives are unlikely to produce lasting results.
Ceylan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.