By contrast, misinformation sharing refers to people’s sharing of incorrect information that is created without the intention of causing harm ( Madraki et al., 2021), whereas fake news sharing describes individuals’ sharing of false information that is intentionally created to mislead readers ( Di Domenico et al., 2021). Unverified information sharing emphasizes people’s sharing without authenticating the information ( Laato et al., 2020), and the shared information could be either true or false. However, we suggest important differences between them. In relation to the term unverified information sharing, several other terms, such as misinformation sharing and fake news sharing, have been used interchangeably in extant research ( Islam et al., 2020 Laato et al., 2020 Apuke and Omar, 2021).
Thus, understanding individuals’ unverified information sharing on social media is of great importance in fighting the infodemic.
#Wechat stock verification#
The individual-level behavior of sharing information without verification is a major cause of the wide spread of misinformation. Moreover, social media afford users the great convenience of sharing information with just a click, usually without careful scrutiny of the information content ( Apuke and Omar, 2021). The prevalence of social media amplifies this phenomenon because information travels much faster and further compared with the times when web-based technologies are not prevalent ( Zarocostas, 2020).
An infodemic occurs when an excessive amount of information, including false or misleading information, circulates in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak, which leads to public confusion, risk-taking behaviors, mistrust in health authorities, and other negative social impacts ( WHO, 2020a). The COVID-19 pandemic has not only posed a severe threat to public health but has also brought about an infodemic. Practical implications for curbing people’s tendencies toward unverified information sharing on social media are discussed. The moderated mediation model extends the cognitive overload approach and indicates that unverified information sharing is not only an individual strategy to cope with information overload but also a herding behavior to manage anxiety. Moreover, perceived herd positively moderated the link between anxiety and unverified information sharing, such that the indirect effect of perceived information overload on unverified information sharing via anxiety was significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was high, whereas the indirect effect was not significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was low. In addition, this relationship was partially mediated by anxiety. The results of an online survey in China ( N = 525) showed that perceived information overload was positively associated with unverified information sharing. Anxiety demonstrates people’s emotional response to the pandemic, whereas perceived herd describes a willingness to share certain information if it has been shared by many. This study aims to explore the mediating role of anxiety and the moderating role of perceived herd between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing on WeChat. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism of this process. The association between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing has been well documented in the cognitive overload approach. Individuals’ unverified information sharing on social media, namely, sharing information without verification, is a major cause of the widespread misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 2School of Communication, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.1College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.Qing Huang 1 *, Sihan Lei 1 and Binbin Ni 1,2
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