NewsGuard Impact Evaluation

Understanding the relationship between digital media literacy and susceptibility to dubious sources of onlinecontent is crucial for designing interventions to counter the spread of misinformation (Guess et al. 2020).Unlike some competencies, these skills can potentially be taught, raising the possibility of scalable solutionsto our informational malaise. This project sets out to understand the lasting impact of such initiativesonline. For this project, we test the efficacy of the web extension NewsGuard on shifting online consumptionfrom unreliable sources known for publishing misleading or false content to credible sources. We test if this will also reduce the level of belief in misinformation and increase trust in credible sources.We test if this intervention has larger effects on sub-populations most vulnerable to fake news and if there are downstream effects on other outcomes (affective polarization, political cynicism, etc.) that correlate with viewing, believing, and sharing news from unreliable sources. The following pre-analysis plan was filed before the researchers gained access to the survey or tracking data.