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The spread of online misinformation on social media is increasingly
perceived as a problem for societal cohesion and democracy. The role of
political leaders in this process has attracted less research attention, even
though politicians who ‘speak their mind’ are perceived by segments of the
public as authentic and honest even if their statements are unsupported by
evidence. By analysing communications by members of the US Congress
on Twitter between 2011 and 2022, we show that politicians’ conception
of honesty has undergone a distinct shift, with authentic belief speaking
that may be decoupled from evidence becoming more prominent and
more differentiated from explicitly evidence-based fact speaking. We show
that for Republicans—but not Democrats—an increase in belief speaking
of 10% is associated with a decrease of 12.8 points of quality (NewsGuard
scoring system) in the sources shared in a tweet. In contrast, an increase in
fact-speaking language is associated with an increase in quality of sources
for both parties. Our study is observational and cannot support causal
inferences. However, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the
current dissemination of misinformation in political discourse is linked to an
alternative understanding of truth and honesty that emphasizes invocation
of subjective belief at the expense of reliance on evidence ....read more