How the Information Cascade Works in a Fake Celebrity Prank
The concept of the information cascade can explain social phenomena like social conformity and groupthink. An information cascade occurs when there’s a group of people who are basing their decisions off of what they observe others are doing. It happens in a sequential manner, and every person has to decide whether to trust their own private information, or base their actions off of inferences they make about everyone else’s actions.
Unfortunately, this way of decision making can lead to fake news being spread. A popular way of spreading fake news online is with the help of social media bots that create fake posts that sound human. As more people interact with the post through liking, commenting, and sharing, it spreads across the internet for more people to see. But it’s not just the fast spread of the information that is bad. People are also more receptive to ideas on shared posts because we trust our peers’ recommendations.
The spread of fake news through information cascades has also been recorded on film. In the YouTube video “Fake Celebrity Pranks New York City,” a 21-year-old college student Brett Cohen dressed like a movie star and had his friends dress up as body guards, personal assistants, and photographers. His entourage had private information about the prank, so they acted like Brett was a celebrity by snapping photos of him and guarding his way through Time Square. Outsiders noticed and began to follow Brett because they inferred from the photographers and body guards that he was famous too. More and more pedestrians began to follow as they saw others following Brett. People also started to take pictures with him. At a certain point, the cameraman that Brett hired was interviewing people and asking them what they know about Brett. One person recalled seeing Brett in Spiderman, and this idea spread across the social network of people who were following him. Keep in mind that Brett’s entourage never shared any information about who Brett is. The Spiderman actor idea planted a seed, and people made the rational decision to believe that he was in Spiderman because of the bodyguards, paparazzi, and huge crowd behind him that believed that he was in Spiderman as well. In the end, everyone believed that they had seen Brett in Spiderman and that he was a celebrity.
In conclusion, the information cascade effect can be dangerous if it is used to spread fake news. Although the prank Brett Cohen pulled was lighthearted, it illustrates how fast information spreads as people continue to make decisions based off of what others do regardless of their own private information. Therefore, it is imperative that we fact check information that we see online and in the physical world.
Sources:
https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/spread
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/networks-book-ch16.pdf