Disinformation Sharing Thrives with Fear of Missing Out among Low Cognitive News Users: A Cross-national Examination of Intentional Sharing of Deep Fakes

This study investigates the antecedents of advertent (intentional) deepfakes sharing behavior. Data from two countries (US and Singapore) reveal that social media news use and FOMO are positively associated with intentional deep fakes sharing. Those with lower cognitive ability exhibit higher levels of FOMO and increased sharing behavior. FOMO also has a positive mediation effect on the association among citizens’ news use and sharing of deep fakes. Moderated mediation suggests that the indirect effects of social media news use on advertent sharing through FOMO are more substantial for low than high cognitive individuals. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.