TRUTH DECAYFact Check: Why Do we Believe Fake News?
Fake news has become a real threat to society. Some internet users are more likely to accept misinformation and fake news as true information than others. How do psychological and social factors influence whether we fall for them or not? And what can we do against it?
Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic or gender issues, more and more fake news have been circulating on the internet in recent years, especially on emotional and controversial topics. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. Other times, they are easier to recognize.
But not for everyone: Some internet users are more likely to accept misinformation and fake news as true information than others. In this DW fact check, we look at why that is.
Cognitive Distortions Fool Us
A term that comes up again and again in this context is “cognitive bias.” It describes faulty tendencies in human thinking from which we find it difficult to free ourselves.
Among other things, our views, and our preconceived worldview, also called “partisanship” or “confirmation bias” in some specialist articles, play a major role in why we fall for fake news.
Cognitive psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky from Bristol University explains the phenomenon: “If I hear something I want to hear because it is in line with my political opinions, yes, then I’ll believe it even more.”
So we are always biased. For example, those who are convinced that Germany is taking in too many refugees are more inclined to believe news stories that report on local authorities being overburdened or generally say negative things about this group.
Another important “cognitive bias” is that we often simply trust our intuition. It seems unnecessary to us — and is probably too much of a nuisance — to check something again before we internalize it, comment on it, and forward it. Thus, many users only read the headline of articles, but not the actual text.
The Science Post and NPR, for example, tested this by posting misleading headlines. Readers only learned that the whole thing was an experiment if they clicked on the links — which most of them did not do.
Negative Content Triggers Us the Most
The “bandwagon effect”also misleads us: According to this phenomenon, people have a tendency to follow the opinions or behaviors of others rather than forming their own opinion. In relation to fake news, this means that we are more likely to believe information if others do so as well.
