We find news authentication is a resilience tool fostered by institutional trust & political efficacy, esp where structural factors fail to curb misinfo, but it's also fueled by conspiracy beliefs in Western democracies, reflecting its 'dark side' in contexts of growing anti-establishment sentiments
while news verification should be about facts, it is often done through a political lens. This begs the question: Will programs such as community notes that rely heavily on user verification serve their purpose or further exacerbate information disorder
We used a multilevel comparative approach to examine how individual characteristics & structural contexts together shape news authentication, comparing countries with distinct media & political systmes: the Netherlands, the US, and Hong Kong with a preregistered, population-based survey (N = 6,082)