The spread of true and false news online

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146.full

by jaybaxter • 8 years ago

66 35 8 years ago

science.sciencemag.org

wufufufu• 8 years ago

tl;dr False news is usually more interesting because it doesn't have to be true and so it spreads faster

sjbase• 8 years ago

It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10. As the truth never diffused beyond a depth of 10, we saw that falsehood reached a depth of 19 nearly 10 times faster than the truth reached a depth of 10

The study attributes most of that force multiplier to novelty and surprise, where falsehood will always have an advantage; important things that actually happen are often not surprising. Maybe people who wrap truth in clickbaity headlines are actually heroes, trying to even out the playing field... I never really thought of it that way before.

stcredzero4• 8 years ago

Here's an antidote:

https://www.theknifemedia.com/

dgut• 8 years ago

Thanks for the link.

anigbrowl2• 8 years ago

Pseudo-objectivity with pretty analytics that just happens to have a glaring selection bias and where everything is neatly explained by self-appointed analytical experts. In other words, just like existing media but with catchier design.

13years• 8 years ago

Looks good, but in the end, this is what I tell people.

"The media you trust is the most dangerous media of all."

In other words, don't ever turn off your brain and just accept what you are being told. Inevitably the only solution is to question it all and get input from multiple sources.

bmpafa2• 8 years ago

nice site, but i'll never understand the thinking behind "let's ask if they want to receive notifications immediately upon first page-hit"

does anyone actually click 'yes' to that prompt?

nemild• 8 years ago

Absolutely, I know several journalists who think about how to pitch the "health food" of boring, but important articles with clickbait titles.

Another question to ask: In old print media, is it ok to have crazily sensationalistic headlines on the front page, with the hope that it gets people read the thoughtful journalism underneath?

Just to give you a sense, I took 1.5 years of death coverage in the NY Times and compared to actual deaths. My gut is that the reason for the coverage gap is primarily a function of reader interest, which presumably gets people to read more:

https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html

As the old aphorism goes, "if it bleed, it leads"

anigbrowl2• 8 years ago

No, clickbaity headlines just make everything worse. On the other hand, knowing that fake news has much longer resharing chains is a valuable filtering tool.

r00fus• 8 years ago

At some point will the online populace be inoculated from "new surprising info" that isn't verified?

ie, distrust all news until there's corroboration?

krapp• 8 years ago

No. Humans tend to be emotional beings who rationalize whatever preserves their ego and confirms preexisting biases, and the opinions of friends and peers matters more to most people than fact checking by independent, objective sources.

3princip• 8 years ago

While not surprising that hyperbole and bombastic claims would fare better than run of the mill news stories or opinions, seems strange to consider all tweets as news stories. Also, their cited sources of truth are overtly biased with respect to politics.

ghostbrainalpha• 8 years ago

"We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications."

> What cited sources of truth are overtly biased?

mattkevan3• 8 years ago

Bias = ‘I disagree’

devindotcom2• 8 years ago

The definition of tweets as news is explained in the paper. The bias allegation doesn't really hold up, and anyway the researchers independently verified and tested 13,000 more stories and found the same patterns.

ilaksh• 8 years ago

This study is suspect because it does not reference propaganda history or research. It does not even use the word. Also the mechanism of defining truth is suspect: it is always possible to find several sources that agree on something and several others that disagree. There seems not much emphasis on primary sources.

Please research the history of propaganda in the United States for yourself. See articles on Edward Bernays and documentaries like The Century of the Self. Research terms like "the fourth estate".

barell• 8 years ago

It’s so easy to put anything on the internet and anyone could do that. I think most of the times is that people responsible for posting for bigger audience just don’t bother to check the source and publish news based on Joe Blogs tweet or post.

The truth is there are not many good journalists who cares and it’s more about making clicks rather than produce rich content.

Don’t think there is anything we can do about false news. Just learn how to live with it.

bostik• 8 years ago

Media literacy is incredibly difficult.

It is difficult because independent thought is too demanding. Marketers, propagandists, and yes, even hard-core journalists all rely on this. The fake news phenomenon has always existed, but it is amplified by the ease of manufactured outrage. Instant and global spread of (mis)information makes containment practically impossible.

If you can spot good satire, you are probably more likely to be able to spot bogus news items too. But spotting satire is damn hard - and a really good satire is nearly indistinguishable from well done legitimate reporting and/or story telling.

fortythirteen3• 8 years ago

Nothing has changed over the centuries but the mechanisms by which propaganda is spread. The term "fake news" is itself propaganda, playing to people's innate sense that they are not, in fact, irrational and emotional beings, and are somehow better than the "morons" who fall for false stories.

The sad truth is that even the smartest of us are, in some degree, intellectually lazy and hold at least one false belief. The only thing that has increased over the last decades is the average westerner's desire to force those beliefs upon their fellow citizens.

9889095r3jh• 8 years ago

"Nothing has changed over the centuries but the mechanisms by which propaganda is spread."

This is true. We now have digital platforms which reward propaganda by spreading it faster.

The speed and spread of false information has exponentially increased because social media distorts media coverage, rewarding sensational, emotionally charged content with greater reach in people's timelines and feeds.

Rumors used to spread from person to person, but the algorithms are giving them an edge. The algorithms are not neutral. They are designed to favor clickbait.

fortythirteen3• 8 years ago

Did any smaller percentage of Americans go along with McCarthyism? The mechanisms of delivery are the excuse used to keep people blind to the faults that lay within.

Propaganda and its delivery methods only have the power you give them. We all have the ability to seek out truth.

ahartman00• 8 years ago

"increased over the last decades is the average westerner's desire to force those beliefs upon their fellow citizens"

What makes you think this? Galileo was hung for what he said.

"Another approach is to follow that word, heresy. In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force."

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

fortythirteen3• 8 years ago

I think the operative word there is "westerner". Particularly in America, there has at least been room for open, somewhat peaceful discourse on contentious topics. One need only look at the Buckley/Vidal debates for proof of that.

Those days are gone, and a emboldened radical left, hell bent on stamping out heterodoxy through violence and intimidation, has the silent consent of progressives.

DanAndersen• 8 years ago

Galileo was hung for what he said.

I get the point of what you are saying (that times in the past have had very extreme responses to people stating things that were accurate but unpopular), but Galileo was not hung or even executed. He was placed under house arrest (the trouble he got into was also more about stepping on the Church's domain of interpreting Scripture rather than astronomical facts, but that's a tangential popular misconception).

jconley• 8 years ago

Based on this study's conclusions it seems that the ability to easily retweet (or re-share on facebook) combined with social networks surfacing our engagement (e.g. JD liked this post) to our first degree network is really at the root of all of this.

I wonder how/if rumors used to spread on Twitter before retweet was a first party feature.

mattkevan3• 8 years ago

“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it” - Jonathan Swift, 1710

“...a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on” - Terry Pratchett, 2000

devindotcom2• 8 years ago

the pratchett quote actually dates to much earlier. it's been attributed to churchill and twain. I used the Swift quote in my writeup of this study, though!

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

mattkevan3• 8 years ago

Yeah I know - I read the same quoteinvestigator article. I just liked the comparison between Swift and Pratchett.

fareesh• 8 years ago

Great discussion on the subject of fake news:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOxmIjiRqTw

The spread of true and false news online

Related Stories