PONE-D-23-32351Who shares fake news on social media? Evidence from vaccines and infertility claims in sub-Saharan AfricaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Unfried,

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Although I appreciate the authors' attempt and hard efforts on this topic, which shed light regarding the actual behaviors in sharing fake news, I think that the present study has some issues. Please see my comments below.

1. Some papers on the rumors associated with COVID-19 and social trust in government/health authorities should be used in the Introduction to illustrate the importance of tackling fake news. Please see the following papers.

Kar B, Kar N, Panda MC. Social trust and COVID-appropriate behavior: Learning from the pandemic. Asian J Soc Health Behav 2023;6:93-104

Nurmansyah MI, Suraya I, Fauzi R, Al-Aufa B. Beliefs about the effects of smoking on corona virus disease 2019 and its impact on the intention to quit and smoking frequencies among university students smokers in Jakarta, Indonesia. Asian J Soc Health Behav 2023;6:7-13

2. A big issue for me is that the authors let the participants shared the fake news. I think that this is unethical although this is an important measure. Therefore, I would like to know if the authors have do anything to stop sharing the fake news to avoid negative consequence.

3. The measures used in the present study did not have psychometric evidence. I wonder how the authors developed these measures and how they ensure their reliability and validity for use.

4. I suppose that the authors used English for the study measures. How did the authors ensure that the participants had good English to complete the questions? For example, I see that the authors collected participants receiving no or primary education; how do the authors ensure that these participants could understand the questionnaires?

5. In my opinion, Figures 1 and 2 are redundant as their information can be briefly mentioned in the Results section.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Who shares fake news on social media? Evidence from vaccines and infertility claims in sub-Saharan Africa

PONE-D-23-32351R1

Dear Dr. Unfried,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Amir H. Pakpour, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have satisfactorily addressed all my prior concerns. I am happy with the present revision and do not have any more comments.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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