Information Cascades and Fake News
Though we often see technology as an enabler of learning, it’s easy to forget that it is more accurately an enabler of the rapid spread of information. There’s no guarantee, however, that this information is accurate. False information can often spread just as easy as genuine information, purely by power of momentum.
A recent article by The Guardian examined the nature of fake news as it relates to social media, and how technology is enabling its spread. The explanation relates essentially to our discussion of information cascades in class. It’s especially interesting that information cascades can have such negative effects, and that technology is rapidly enabling it.
Fake news stories can start on social media for a number of reasons, as the articles describes: “out of panic, sometimes out of malice, and sometimes deliberate manipulation.” Certainly such misleading stories being created isn’t unexpected. The real question is why this information gains traction instead of falling by the wayside.
The article quotes a legal expert in online-harassment, Danielle Citron, “people forward on what others think, even if the information is false, misleading or incomplete, because they think they have learned something valuable.” As we learned in class, even these few initial people spreading these stories is often enough cause an information cascade.
When a large number of your friends are sharing stories, there is an informational effect at work. The more people that spread this story, the more reason you may have to believe in its validity. You may believe that the information you can infer from other people’s choice to spread the story imply something stronger than your own private information about such a story, which may be very little.
In addition, as the article mentions, people often like to share stories to show kinship with their friends on social media. In this case, the more people that spread the story in your friend circle on social media, the more value you get from spreading the story yourself and increasing your sense of kinship with your friends. As we can see, this means that sharing fake news can also have direct-benefit effects!
It’s certainly an interesting result that rapid spread of information can have such tangible downsides. But the internet allows for such powerful networks that information cascades are inevitable, and it’s a real challenge to address them.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth