Why Debunking Fades: Misinformation Correction as a Temporary Achievement in Competitive Social Media Environments

Abstract

Research on misinformation correction has focused mainly on whether debunking reduces false beliefs immediately after exposure, while paying less attention to why such effects weaken over time. This paper argues that correction effectiveness is best understood as a temporary persuasive achievement whose durability depends on continued success in post-exposure competition. Corrective influence must remain competitive across three linked domains: attention allocation, interpretive authority, and memory retrievability. Corrections fade when they lose attention, lose control over how they are understood, and become less retrievable than the misinformation they seek to displace. Debunking decay, in this sense, reflects the difficulty of sustaining corrective influence over time.