The science of fake news
09 Mar 2018-Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science)-Vol. 359, Iss: 6380, pp 1094-1096
TL;DR: The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age as discussed by the authors. But much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors.
Abstract: The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials.
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TL;DR: The results, which mirror those found previously for political fake news, suggest that nudging people to think about accuracy is a simple way to improve choices about what to share on social media.
Abstract: Across two studies with more than 1,700 U.S. adults recruited online, we present evidence that people share false claims about COVID-19 partly because they simply fail to think sufficiently about whether or not the content is accurate when deciding what to share. In Study 1, participants were far worse at discerning between true and false content when deciding what they would share on social media relative to when they were asked directly about accuracy. Furthermore, greater cognitive reflection and science knowledge were associated with stronger discernment. In Study 2, we found that a simple accuracy reminder at the beginning of the study (i.e., judging the accuracy of a non-COVID-19-related headline) nearly tripled the level of truth discernment in participants' subsequent sharing intentions. Our results, which mirror those found previously for political fake news, suggest that nudging people to think about accuracy is a simple way to improve choices about what to share on social media.
914 citations
TL;DR: Exposure to and sharing of fake news by registered voters on Twitter was examined and it was found that engagement with fake news sources was extremely concentrated and individuals most likely to engage withfake news sources were conservative leaning, older, and highly engaged with political news.
Abstract: The spread of fake news on social media became a public concern in the United States after the 2016 presidential election. We examined exposure to and sharing of fake news by registered voters on Twitter and found that engagement with fake news sources was extremely concentrated. Only 1% of individuals accounted for 80% of fake news source exposures, and 0.1% accounted for nearly 80% of fake news sources shared. Individuals most likely to engage with fake news sources were conservative leaning, older, and highly engaged with political news. A cluster of fake news sources shared overlapping audiences on the extreme right, but for people across the political spectrum, most political news exposure still came from mainstream media outlets.
872 citations
TL;DR: A clear link between susceptibility to misinformation and both vaccine hesitancy and a reduced likelihood to comply with health guidance measures is demonstrated, and interventions which aim to improve critical thinking and trust in science may be a promising avenue for future research.
Abstract: Misinformation about COVID-19 is a major threat to public health. Using five national samples from the UK (n = 1050 and n = 1150), Ireland (n = 700), the USA (n = 700), Spain (n = 700) and Mexico (n = 700), we examine predictors of belief in the most common statements about the virus that contain misinformation. We also investigate the prevalence of belief in COVID-19 misinformation across different countries and the role of belief in such misinformation in predicting relevant health behaviours. We find that while public belief in misinformation about COVID-19 is not particularly common, a substantial proportion views this type of misinformation as highly reliable in each country surveyed. In addition, a small group of participants find common factual information about the virus highly unreliable. We also find that increased susceptibility to misinformation negatively affects people's self-reported compliance with public health guidance about COVID-19, as well as people's willingness to get vaccinated against the virus and to recommend the vaccine to vulnerable friends and family. Across all countries surveyed, we find that higher trust in scientists and having higher numeracy skills were associated with lower susceptibility to coronavirus-related misinformation. Taken together, these results demonstrate a clear link between susceptibility to misinformation and both vaccine hesitancy and a reduced likelihood to comply with health guidance measures, and suggest that interventions which aim to improve critical thinking and trust in science may be a promising avenue for future research.
797 citations
TL;DR: An increasing trend in published articles on health-related misinformation and the role of social media in its propagation is observed, and the most extensively studied topics involving misinformation relate to vaccination, Ebola and Zika Virus, although others, such as nutrition, cancer, fluoridation of water and smoking also featured.
773 citations
TL;DR: This paper conducted a randomized controlled trial in the UK and USA to quantify how exposure to online misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines affects intent to vaccinate to protect oneself or others, and found that in both countries-as of September 2020-fewer people would 'definitely' take a vaccine than is likely required for herd immunity.
Abstract: Widespread acceptance of a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) will be the next major step in fighting the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but achieving high uptake will be a challenge and may be impeded by online misinformation. To inform successful vaccination campaigns, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in the UK and the USA to quantify how exposure to online misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines affects intent to vaccinate to protect oneself or others. Here we show that in both countries-as of September 2020-fewer people would 'definitely' take a vaccine than is likely required for herd immunity, and that, relative to factual information, recent misinformation induced a decline in intent of 6.2 percentage points (95th percentile interval 3.9 to 8.5) in the UK and 6.4 percentage points (95th percentile interval 4.0 to 8.8) in the USA among those who stated that they would definitely accept a vaccine. We also find that some sociodemographic groups are differentially impacted by exposure to misinformation. Finally, we show that scientific-sounding misinformation is more strongly associated with declines in vaccination intent.
742 citations
References
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TL;DR: A large-scale analysis of tweets reveals that false rumors spread further and faster than the truth, and false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information.
Abstract: We investigated the differential diffusion of all of the verified true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.
4,241 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks, and that the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them.
Abstract: Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many have expressed concern about the effects of false stories (“fake news”), circulated largely through social media. We discuss the economics of fake news and present new data on its consumption prior to the election. Drawing on web browsing data, archives of fact-checking websites, and results from a new online survey, we find: (i) social media was an important but not dominant source of election news, with 14 percent of Americans calling social media their “most important” source; (ii) of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times; (iii) the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them; and (iv) people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks.
3,959 citations
TL;DR: Examination of the news that millions of Facebook users' peers shared, what information these users were presented with, and what they ultimately consumed found that friends shared substantially less cross-cutting news from sources aligned with an opposing ideology.
Abstract: Exposure to news, opinion and civic information increasingly occurs through social media. How do these online networks influence exposure to perspectives that cut across ideological lines? Using de-identified data, we examined how 10.1 million U.S. Facebook users interact with socially shared news. We directly measured ideological homophily in friend networks, and examine the extent to which heterogeneous friends could potentially expose individuals to cross-cutting content. We then quantified the extent to which individuals encounter comparatively more or less diverse content while interacting via Facebook’s algorithmically ranked News Feed, and further studied users’ choices to click through to ideologically discordant content. Compared to algorithmic ranking, individuals’ choices about what to consume had a stronger effect limiting exposure to cross-cutting content.
2,014 citations
TL;DR: Older adults over the age of 65 were worse at sustaining their postcorrection belief that myths were inaccurate, and a greater level of explanatory detail promoted more sustained belief change, supports the notion that familiarity is indeed a driver of continued influence effects.
Abstract: People frequently continue to use inaccurate information in their reasoning even after a credible retraction has been presented This phenomenon is often referred to as the continued influence effect of misinformation The repetition of the original misconception within a retraction could contribute to this phenomenon, as it could inadvertently make the "myth" more familiar-and familiar information is more likely to be accepted as true From a dual-process perspective, familiarity-based acceptance of myths is most likely to occur in the absence of strategic memory processes Thus, we examined factors known to affect whether strategic memory processes can be utilized: age, detail, and time Participants rated their belief in various statements of unclear veracity, and facts were subsequently affirmed and myths were retracted Participants then rerated their belief either immediately or after a delay We compared groups of young and older participants, and we manipulated the amount of detail presented in the affirmative or corrective explanations, as well as the retention interval between encoding and a retrieval attempt We found that (a) older adults over the age of 65 were worse at sustaining their postcorrection belief that myths were inaccurate, (b) a greater level of explanatory detail promoted more sustained belief change, and (c) fact affirmations promoted more sustained belief change in comparison with myth retractions over the course of 1 week (but not over 3 weeks), This supports the notion that familiarity is indeed a driver of continued influence effects (PsycINFO Database Record
170 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans' candidates choices in general elections is zero, and present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact tenfold.
Abstract: Significant theories of democratic accountability hinge on how political campaigns affect Americans’ candidate choices. We argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans’ candidates choices in general elections is zero. First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact tenfold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero. In both existing and our original experiments, persuasive effects only appear to emerge in two rare circumstances. First, when candidates take unusually unpopular positions and campaigns invest unusually heavily in identifying persuadable voters. Second, when campaigns contact voters long before election day and measure effects immediately—although this early persuasion decays. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about how political elites influence citizens’ judgments.
163 citations