A new response to online disinformation: How positive authentication labels for news influence user engagement

As negative content labelling faces limitations and automation challenges, the complementary concept of positive labelling is an increasingly promising solution to increase user engagement with reputable news content. The core idea of positive labelling is to label authentic content as good rather than marking fraudulent content as bad . This computational social science study collected digital trace data from 860 participants through a simulated social media news feed. The treatment group was exposed to a positive content authentication label. Results show that the treatment did not affect low- and medium-level engagement actions, such as time spent viewing a post or clicking the content and article link. However, high-level engagement actions, such as commenting and reading the article, significantly increased. The results indicate that exposure to content authentication labels enhances cognitive engagement with authenticated sources, potentially strengthening the role of authentic news in the online news environment and mitigating the risks posed by disinformation.