Humans are able to engage in voluntary forgetting of previously encountered information, as for example demonstrated by research on item-method directed forgetting (IMDF). Across a series of experiments, we examined IMDF of news headlines from (presumably) untrustworthy sources, as well as the potential impact of such voluntary forgetting on judgments of truth. The results showed intact IMDF of news headlines in both recall and recognition. Marking headlines as coming from a trustworthy or an untrustworthy source had essentially no effect on memory, but a large effect on perceived truth. In contrast, instructions to remember or forget headlines had a large effect on memory, but only a small effect on perceived truth. Instructions to remember or forget headlines seemed to bias source attributions, which could explain their (small) influence on perceived truth. Taken together, these findings suggest that voluntary forgetting could indeed be helpful for curtailing the spread of false information – at least as long as people are motivated to forget information from untrustworthy sources.