Fact Check: Why Do we Believe Fake News?

When we see a social media post with lots of shares and likes, we tend to trust swarm intelligence just like everyone else. As already mentioned most of them share and like without taking a closer look at the content.

Our memory is also not very helpful when it comes to correctly storing what we have seen or read, also described as “persistence of inaccuracy.” We often do not recall whether something was true or false. It is not uncommon for people to claim that a false piece of information was true, even if it was later corrected, for example in the form of a fact check.

Apart from these biases, fake news works so well because we are guided more by emotions than we realize. The fact that false news spreads six times faster than true information is due precisely to this emotionality, Lewandowsky says. “Fake news tends to create outrage in the receiver, the recipient of the message. And we know that people, whether you like it or not, are engaging with outrage, provoking information… That makes it more likely for them to go viral.”

The Question of Personal Benefit

A study conducted by the University of Würzburg last year, in which 600 participants were asked to assess the truth of various statements, also revealed that dark personality traits and so-called post-factual epistemic beliefs make us more susceptible to fake news.

“To find out about respondents’ beliefs about knowledge and facts, we asked them: ‘Do you trust your intuition when you encounter information? How much value do you place on evidence? Do you believe there is such a thing as independent facts at all?,’” the study’s lead author, psychologist Jan Philipp Rudloff, told DW.

The evaluation revealed that the participants found it more difficult to distinguish true statements from false ones the more they relied on their gut feeling and the less they believed in the existence of facts.

“And then we also looked at the ‘dark factor of personality,’ sort of the core of all dark personality traits, such as narcissism or psychopathy,” Rudloff said. “They’re called dark because those are related to behaviors that we don’t socially approve of.”

For people with a strong dark personality factor, he said, their own advantage is the most important thing. Everything else — and that could be the truth in some circumstances — becomes subordinate to that.

“The question then is not whether a piece of information is true or not, but whether it benefits them, plays into their cards, serves as justification.” Dark personality traits and a problematic understanding of knowledge and facts often go hand in hand, according to Rudloff, and usually manifest themselves at a young age.

The Desire for Attention and Approval
Joe Walther, director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, points to another important aspect that promotes the spread of fake news. He sees liking, commenting and spreading information on the internet primarily as a social interaction: “I think people often engage in social media (behavior) in order to feel like they’re participating and to be recognized for it.”

“So if I send you a crazy story that research has found that short people are more susceptible to fake news than tall people. I doubt such a thing is true, but I think you would appreciate that I sent you that crazy, funny thing and I think people use social media in order to be liked by others, in order to get attention, to be recognized, validated,” he said.

At the same time, this example helps to illustrate that users don’t share fake news necessarily because they fall for it. Rather, they simply want to entertain and amuse themselves and others. Or they share content precisely because they do NOT believe it to be true.

What Can We Do to Become More Resilient?
The reasons why we believe fake news are complex. Among other things, they have to do with our personality and our attitude toward knowledge and facts. Fake news is also an appealing vehicle for networking with others and enjoying attention and approval. There are also various cognitive mechanisms that distort our perception.

The question is: How do we become more resilient? The first step is to become aware of how susceptible we are to manipulation and to be aware that we can never be entirely objective. Jan Rudloff advocates providing students with more meta-level knowledge regarding facts and science.

“Ultimately, in science, it is always the case that you can only find a consensus, a kind of agreement among as many experts as possible. But as new information comes in, what was previously considered fact or consensus can shift.”

This is very complex, he said, and it gives some people the impression that facts are arbitrarily determined by politicians and scientists. An example of that is the claim made during the corona pandemic that children would not spread COVID-19 as much — and then it turned out they did.

An approach that goes in a similar direction is the so-called prebunking. With information about fake news and disinformation at their disposal, users can be sensitized even before they encounter it. One idea of that would be to provide an information campaign ahead of an election where a lot of fake news is expected to manipulate voters.

Checklist: How Do I Spot Fake News?

·  Fake news often appeals to emotions and instincts: Think about why the news appeals to you.

·  Is it clear where the information came from? Check if it is from the original source. If it’s not, be skeptical.

·  Does the person or website spreading the information seem credible? It’s worth taking a closer look.

·  Sensational wording, a dubious layout or spelling mistakes should make you suspicious.

·  Look for more information on the topic to compare and cross-check

Ines Eisele is a DW journalist. This article is published This courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).