Fact checkers fail to overcome partisan divides in two of the world’s largest democracies

Abstract Misinformation easily spreads on social media and fact-checkers have an important role in correcting falsehoods. Most misinformation is of a partisan nature and appeals selectively to users on the basis of ideology. Thus, it is possible that fact checks may not overcome existing ideological divisions on social media. We examine this separately for a slice of Twitter users, following certain partisan outlets from India and the US. In both cases, users of left-leaning news outlets are more likely to follow and share content by fact checkers. Followers of right-leaning outlets rarely follow or amplify fact checkers and only selectively engage to reply to posts by fact checkers. Our analysis of 7mn partisan news users from two of the world’s largest democracies suggests that exposure to fact-checking therefore remains largely restricted to left-leaning Twitter users with little evidence that these interventions penetrate among right-leaning slices, where partisan misinformation also circulates