Assigning Responsibility for Preventing the Spread of Misinformation Online: Some Findings on Gender Differences

Open Access

Abstract

"Fake News" gained major attention throughout all types of media such as print media, broadcast news, and the Internet. This paper utilizes data from a survey of Internet users to compare the perceptions of females and males of the responsibility in preventing the spread of fake news. Those held responsible for taking additional control include public, government, and social media sites. Most respondents (91%) think that made up news stories hinder Americans. Also, most Americans agree that all three players should be more responsible -public (76%), government (73%), networking sites (76%). The results of a regression analysis followed by a t-test revealed that there is no statistically significant gender difference among the means. However, females are more likely to attribute the primary responsibility to the social media sites, when males are more likely to perceive the government as the primary responsible.