Information Cascades, False News, and Addressing Proposed Solutions to False News potential for Further Cascades
http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13637310/facebook-fake-news-explained
The article linked addresses the current debate surrounding fake news spreading on Facebook. This subject has been given increased coverage recently in light of the results of the election and the increased sensitivity of the world to information covered on social media. This election has been the first event to bring to light these major problems with social media coverage allowing fake news and thus the research surrounding this is still very much ongoing. That being said, this article proposes a method for reducing the spread of fake news by changing the ‘cards’ on Facebook which represent credible vs non credible sources. This is an interesting solution because it proposes a way of differentiating the types of news, but the problem is it relies on people not giving in to confirmation bias. That is to say people want to believe their right and thus if their news comes from different sized or formatted cards many people will still continue to read and trust the news they see. This is how the problem of fake news, and the difficulty of eradicating social media of it connects to our class. Information cascades have been a main point of discussion in this class for the past several weeks, and falsified news, and this proposed solution, are examples of information cascades. In an information cascade not only is information spread, but the incorrect information can be assumed to be true because enough other people are agreeing with this conclusion. So, in false news case studies of the past, what has happened is that the false information spread across social media outweighs the true news in some circles and thus the groups attached to this will spread further. The effect being that false news can spread and outweigh truthful news. This proposed solution may cause this on a larger scale because as the circles in which false news spread adapt modified formats of news sources to be the standard then the information will continue to spread and actually here have the potential to stomp out more truthful news sources as any form of standard. Overall, the partisanship of news, in this election in particular, has been the result of information cascades in different circles, and the problem with addressing and attempting to fix it is not causing continued cascades and polarization in different forms.