Posting and Reposting: Investigating Reputation, Trust, and Deniability in Online Communication

On social media, much of what we communicate is affirmed only indirectly, by reposting. Reposting, in turn, has been identified as one of the main online conduits for fake news . Some researchers have suggested that reposting fosters misinformation because it is less damaging to one’s reputation than directly posting that same content. While fairly intuitive, this hypothesis has never been tested empirically. We present results from four studies that investigate these assumptions, comparing direct and indirect communication of false information, both online (posting vs reposting) and offline (claiming vs reporting). Our findings are among the first to examine how reposting affects deniability, reputation, and trust, offering insights into whether this form of communication really can help unreliable communicators to evade the normative incentives that keep misinformation in check.