Why Fake News Spreads So Fast on Facebook
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-31/why-fake-news-spreads-so-fast-on-facebook
As we learned in class, behaviors and decisions are spread through populations fairly quickly, through information cascades. In a given network, a cascade is initiated through the actions of an individual’s connections. In other words, a cascade causes an individual to act based on the experiences of other people in that person’s network. These actions range from opinions, product purchases, activity pursuits, and even political positions. Cascades demonstrate the strength of numbers, and shows how easily people are influenced by their friends’ and family’s decisions.
These cascades are relevant because of the ubiquity of fake news. In the past two years, the intentional spreading of false stories has been running rampant in our daily lives. These articles are strategically placed on social media outlets, including Twitter and Facebook, reaching billions of people in any targeted demographic. These malicious stories are credited with influencing votes in Brexit and the most recent US Presidential Election. In this particular article, three network theorists, Christoph Aymann, Jakob Foerester, and Co-Pierre Goerg found that the creators of these fake news articles are deliberately targeting the lowest denominator – the most susceptible people on social networks.
In today’s world, targeted advertisement is incredibly accurate and effective. Through the use of ad bidding, fake news creators can specifically identify a gullible audience and push advertisements featuring false articles to them. The members of the targeted audience are chosen because they are most likely to believe the information. They serve as the initial cluster of believers. This is where the information cascade comes into play. These uninformed believers share, comment, and recommend these fake news articles to other uninformed friends in their network, who in turn do the same. This is especially dangerous, as false information spreads rapidly.