Preventive Practices against Fraudulent Imitation of Information on Social Media Platforms among Senior High School Students

In today’s world of information technology, numerous fraudulent imitations of information are circulating on social media, from the COVID-19 pandemic to politics to any other information. So far, little attention has been paid to insights from the social and behavioral sciences to combat fraudulent information despite the availability of research to draw from. One emerging insight is that fact-checks spread slower on social media than fake news. This study determined the extent of preventive practices against fraudulent imitation of information on social media platforms in terms of propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation among Senior High School students in a private Catholic school in the Philippines. Using the descriptive-comparative research design, the study utilized 280 stratified randomly sampled students. The data were gathered using a validated and reliability-tested researcher-made questionnaire. The data analyses employed Mean, standard deviation, T-test independent samples, and ANOVA. The findings revealed that the extent of preventive practices against fraudulent imitation of information on social media platforms in terms of propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation is high. The findings also revealed no significant difference in the extent of preventive practices against fraudulent imitation of information on social media platforms in terms of propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation when grouped according to sex and strand, except for preventive practices against disinformation when grouped according to sex. The findings of the study provided baseline data in the formulation of instructional materials to strengthen students’ preventive practices against fraudulent imitation of information on social media platforms.