Information cascades in fake news
https://news.stanford.edu/2019/11/18/high-school-students-unequipped-spot-fake-news/
In recent years fake news has been a big issue with social media and online websites, particularly in relation to elections. This epidemic inspired a new Stanford experiment testing high school students’ ability to detect fake news. The results were alarming with one question having only a 4% success rate since the other 96% not considering a fossil fuel industry might not be a credible source about climate change. These results are startling considering this population will be becoming new voters over the next few years.
The spread of fake news is like an information cascade where instead of buying a product, users are sharing information. This study shows that high school students largely assume if a website shares a news article that it is a sign that they had information about the website’s credibility that made them choose to share it and so it a smart decision to share it as well. However, what this assumption doesn’t take into consideration is that certain users have personal benefits from people believing a piece of information is true whether or not it is. Furthermore, many people have confirmation bias meaning they’ll readily accept information as fact so long as it reaffirms a previous belief. As a result, it only takes a few users to knowingly spreading a fake article or place a fake ad and then everyone else assumes the others are sharing it because they have information that it’s true and so they trust it and spread it further creating a misinformation cascade.