ABSTRACT
How do respondents take actions to combat disinformation about COVID-19 they encounter on social media? Who are the citizens who take such actions and why? What are the differences in those actions across the four cities? This chapter addresses these questions by examining three types of behavioral responses to COVID-19-related misinformation—support for government action to restrict COVID-19 misinformation and taking promotional and civic actions. Results reveal that male respondents who were younger, better educated, and living in Beijing more frequently engaged in fighting back against misinformation. Moreover, exposure to, sharing of, and elaboration about misinformation explained how often respondents in the four cities took actions to contest misinformation during the pandemic. That is, the greater the exposure to, sharing of, and elaboration about misinformation, the more often the respondents engaged in actions against misinformation. Finally, encountering misinformation about COVID-19 seemed to stimulate behavioral responses from thoughtful respondents to contest the misinformation. Cross-societal analyses of the four cities show that residents in Beijing who were exposed to misinformation the most were the most active in fighting back.
