How Cascading Information Can Help Spread Fake News
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html
In this article, The New York Times deconstructs exactly how a tweet from a 35-year-old Texas resident went viral and became a fake-news phenomenon. They explained how it all started with Mr. Tucker tweeting a misinformed tweet to his very small following on Twitter. Later that day, someone from a conservative discussion forum linked the tweet on a Reddit post which brought a lot more attention to it. Sometime later, the director of the bus company mentioned in the tweet about in the tweet received many emails and saw multiple posts about the tweet. He was also contacted by a Fox television reporter to speak on the tweet. The information spread very quickly and many other media outlets broadcasted it the following few hours.
What happened with Mr. Tucker’s tweet is an information cascade because wrong information continued to spread because people kept sharing it within their circles. In this day and time, fake news circulates very fast with the help of cascading information. Any entity with a specific agenda is able to spread fake news in order to accomplish a certain goal, and if individuals and groups pick up that information and spread it, it is relatively easy to get into a cycle of sharing and have it spread very widely very fast. This is why it is very important to check any information that is shared before sharing it again and contributing in the information cascade.