Why People Share Fake News
People believe accuracy matters, but their behavior shows the opposite
Misinformation has been around throughout human history, but with the expanding influence of social networks, it’s spreading faster and wider than ever before. Although there’s plenty of discussion around the urgency of mitigating this problem, we don’t seem to be nearing any workable solution.
The problem is it’s hard to find a solution without truly understanding why people share fake news. The easy answer is that they “do it for the clicks” and “don’t care about the truth”, but the explanation appears to be less cynical than that for most people. Fortunately, research is starting to shed light on what’s going on in people’s minds when they share misleading articles and promote corrupt sources.
How misinformation spreads like wildfire
Earlier this year, a group of researchers from MIT and the University of Regina published a paper comparing 3 hypotheses. Each hypothesis made a prediction about why people might share fake news:
- Because people are confused about what is accurate vs…
