Information Cascades and Social Media Websites
In an article titled “Going Viral Doesn’t Make You Popular,” the author interviewed Derek Thompson, writer of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distinction. Thompson argues that “distribution is more important than content when it comes to popularity.” In other words, quantity is more important than quality, despite what many people may think. This is especially important in the spreading of lies and fake news; people tend to believe that something widespread (perhaps something they’ve seen shared frequently on Facebook and Twitter) has truth to it based on its frequency.
Based on the information we have learned about information cascades in class, it makes sense that news spreads quickly within clusters. Thanks to social media, these clusters are more connected with other clusters and can incorporate more people (nodes) than ever. Facebook friends and Twitter tweets and retweets are just two examples of how these websites can allow you access to clusters adjacent to yours. Unfortunately, this means that false information will be able to spread quickly and the more it spreads, the more believable people will see it as.
Aside from fake news, this is especially a problem when it comes to prejudice. Thompson claims: “Prejudice has to be taught. One of its instructors is media, and media makes things go viral.” This brings up the question of how we are supposed to combat the phenomenon of social media networking websites. One possible solution could be to use information cascades to broadcast positive and truthful messages in an attempt to combat the negative and false messages. However, this would also contribute to the vast amounts of information in the Internet, and may get lost in all of the noise. I open the question to you: what can and should we do to stop this?