Research Article

The Research on the Third-Party Effect of False Advertising in Live-Streaming E-Commerce and Consumers' Willingness to Protect Their Rights

Shiyan CaoSouthwest Petroleum University*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Live-streaming e-commerce has become a mainstream consumption channel, but false advertising by livestreamers is rampant, and consumers' willingness to protect their rights is low. Existing research on the third-person effect focuses on public communication scenarios, but lacks exploration of the mechanism by which third-person perception influences rights protection behavior in the commercial scenario of false advertising in livestreaming. To clarify the intrinsic logic of the role of consumers' third-person perception, platform trust and willingness to protect their rights in false advertising in livestreaming, this paper constructs an empirical model based on the third-person effect theory. The research surveyed consumers who had livestreaming shopping experiences and 262 questionnaires were distributed online. After a screening process, 220 valid samples were retained. The processing and analysis of this data was completed with the tool SPSS 26.0, covering reliability, validity, correlation and multiple regression analyses. The results of the analysis showed that in the scenario of false advertising in livestreaming, there is indeed a significant third-person effect. Specifically, people tend to believe that others are more influenced than they are.The only factor that genuinely drove people to seek rights protection was their level of trust in the platform. The moderating role of platform trust, however, was not confirmed. This study extends the application of third-person effect theory into the commercial domain. It also provides some experience references and basis for platforms to strengthen supervision and build a consumer rights protection system.

Keywords: third-party effect; live-streaming e-commerce; false advertising; platform trust; rights
Published: September 1, 2026
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2026.BJ36405
Volume: CHR Vol.119
pp. 18-27
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