Misinformation does not reduce trust in accurate search results, but warning banners may backfire

Abstract

People rely on search engines for information in critical contexts, such as public health emergencies–but what makes people trust some search results more than others? Can search engines influence people’s levels of trust by controlling how information is presented? And, how does the presence of misinformation influence people’s trust? Research has identified both rank and the presence of misinformation as factors impacting people’s search behavior. Here, we extend these findings by measuring the effects of these factors, as well as misinformation warning banners, on the perceived trustworthiness of individual search results. We conducted three online experiments (N = 3196) using Covid-19-related queries, and found that although higher-ranked results are clicked more often, they are not more trusted. We also showed that misinformation does not damage trust in accurate results displayed below it. In contrast, while a warning about unreliable sources might decrease trust in misinformation, it significantly decreases trust in accurate information. This research alleviates some concerns about how people evaluate the credibility of information they find online, while revealing a potential backfire effect of one misinformation-prevention approach; namely, that banner warnings about source unreliability could lead to unexpected and nonoptimal outcomes in which people trust accurate information less.