Replication Data for: Fake Claims of Fake News: Political Misinformation, Warnings, and the Tainted Truth Effect

The 2016 U.S. presidential elections increased the salience of misinformation in the context of politics, but decades of research and hundreds of studies have examined the consequences of misinformation and ways to reduce these effects, primarily in the area of eyewitness testimony in criminal trials. Retrospective warnings of post-event misinformation, have been found to help reduce misinformation effects, but warnings are not always effective and at times have unintended consequences. Replicating and extending research from the fields of social cognition and forensic psychology, we find evidence that retrospective warnings of misleading news can help individuals discard erroneous information, although the corrections are weak. However, when informative news is wrongly labeled as inaccurate, these false warnings reduce the news credibility which taints the truth, leads individuals to discard authentic information, and impedes political memory and knowledge. Our findings, while modest, suggest general warnings of misinformation should be used sparingly as indiscriminate use may reduce the credibility of valid news sources and lead individuals to discard useful information.