Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

No 1566: The Effect of Anonymity in Social Media on Fake News Sharing

Joakim Janson () and Emma von Essen ()
Additional contact information
Joakim Janson: Linnaeus University and, Postal: Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden
Emma von Essen: Department of Sociology, Uppsala University

Abstract: We study how anonymity affects fake-news sharing on social media using a natural experiment on Flashback, a large Swedish online discussion forum. In 2014, journalists obtained information that allowed them to identify users registered before March 2007, sharply increasing these users’ risk of public exposure while leaving later registrants unaffected. Using a difference-in-differences design on 1.98 million posts, we find that exposed users reduce references to fake-news sites by about one-quarter of the mean. The effect is concentrated in immigration and domestic-politics discussions and does not extend to legitimate news sources, suggesting that accountability reduces misinformation without reducing news sharing more broadly.

Keywords: Online; Anonymity; Text data; Fake news; Machine learning

JEL-codes: D10; D80; D83; D90

Language: English

39 pages, September 16, 2026

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