Mediating Role of Continued Influence of Misinformation (CIM) between Intolerance and User Engagement on Social Media

Misinformation has become an important problem in the digital world which influences the minds of social media users. The level of influence gets researchers’ attention when users are exposed to misinformation even after the correction. The current research aimed to study the mediating role of the continued influence of misinformation between political and religious intolerance and user engagement. Facebook posts and Tweets (N = 200) were analyzed using content analysis to determine the relationship between variables. Findings revealed that the continued influence of misinformation positively mediates the relationship between intolerance and user engagement. The users are still exposed to misinformation even after correction and identification of the fact check tools which caused an increase in political and religious intolerance.