Reviewing evidence improves crowdworkers’ misinformation judgments, reduces partisan bias

Study: Searching for or reviewing evidence improves crowdworkers' misinformation judgments and reduces partisan bias. People make better and less biased judgments about misinformation after searching the internet for corroborating evidence, according to a new University of Michigan study. If members of a large panel of people, described as lay raters or crowdworkers, each make independent judgments after conducting online searches, the research indicates they would make better judgments than a small panel of journalists. The study, published in Collective Intelligence, looked at how people evaluate news articles for potential misinformation. Researchers assembled liberal and conservative crowd raters to make judgments about 374 articles. In a "no research” condition, people just viewed the articles and rendered judgments. In an "individual research” condition, they were also asked to search for corroborating evidence and provide a link to the best evidence they found.