A Study of User Perceptions of News Media Labeling to Limit the Spread of Misinformation

Disinformation is a growing problem in an increasingly online society. Several proposals have been made to provide ‘nutritional facts’-style labeling of online content. OpenLabel implements just such a labeling schema as a Chromium extension. We conducted a behavioral intervention to evaluate the impact that OpenLabel had on participant (n=62) beliefs about news media. We note several correlative relationships from respondent's partisanship, ideology, and political knowledge to their responsiveness to OpenLabel. While exposure to the software itself did not appear to have a significant impact on respondent beliefs, we conversely found no evidence of the backfire effect. Several key conclusions are drawn to impact future development on OpenLabel and further research interventions.