We study how politicians respond to the fact-checking of their public statements. Our research design employs a difference-in-differences approach, complemented by a randomised field intervention conducted in collaboration with a leading fact-checking organisation.
We find that fact-checking discourages politicians from making factually incorrect statements, with effects lasting several weeks. At the same time, we show that fact-checking neither increases nor displaces correct statements.
Politicians who are fact-checked tend to substitute incorrect statements with either no statements or unverifiable ones, suggesting that they may also respond by increasing the “ambiguity” of their language to avoid public scrutiny.
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