Are Media Retractions Done Quickly Enough to Reverse the harm of false information?

Researchers are discovering that retractions do very little to stop the spread of false information.

A recent study found that media retractions are not effective in reducing the harm that the false information posted already caused.

According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study discovered that due to the length of time it takes a media outlet to issue a retraction, most readers of the original article that contained falsehoods will not see the retraction.

In essence, the amount of readers who will see the retraction versus the thousands or potentially millions of people who read the misinformation is not even close.

“Retractions come too late to intervene in uncritical mentions of problematic papers,” said co-author Emőke-Ágnes Horvát, an assistant professor of communication at Northwestern University, said in the study. .

“By the time the retraction notice is issued, there are either hardly any mentions of the paper or the mentions are overwhelmingly criticizing the paper.”

Even worse, once retractions are posted, retracted research is often still cited in other articles, due to the retractions going unnoticed.

The study also found that problematic articles tend to receive the most attention on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, which only amplify the problem that misinformation is getting to millions of readers before a retraction takes place. Due to this phenomenon, researchers have said that social media could be used as a possible indicator of dubious research.

“Social media and even top news outlets — the most prestigious venues that cover science — are more prone to talk about papers that end up being retracted,” Horvát said.