Network Effects and Information Cascades in Fake News
Misinformation, or fake news, spreads at shockingly high rates on social media. One example that the article “Fale News Spreads Fast, But Don’t Blame the Bots” mentions surrounds the submersible that lost contact in an attempt to view the Titanic this summer. On TikTok, there was a video that reached nearly 5 million views supposedly showcasing the screams of the passengers shortly before their death. However, this video was a clear example of fake news in that the audio was actually from the popular video game series, Five Nights at Freddy’s, rather than the passengers. Fake news like this often circulates the internet, spreading up to 10 times faster than accurate news, according to a 2018 MIT study. This can be driven by many factors, like that the vast majority of Americans receive their news from apps like Twitter, FaceBook, and TikTok where any user of these apps can evolve into a news source for its wide potential audience. A second factor is that many users’ goal is to receive as many clicks and engagement as possible on their posts, so spreading lies is a common strategy to accomplish this.
Another reason, which strongly relates to the contents of this course, is people’s friends engaging in or spreading fake news. An information cascade happens when someone within a social network observes the decisions of people surrounding them and then makes the same choice or adopts the same behavior without verifying the information themselves. In the case of fake news, if one person’s friends repost something containing misinformation on social media, it could trigger a cascade of other people doing the same. People in networks also often have thresholds for adopting the aforementioned choice or behavior, and, for fake news, if a person sees multiple of their friends reposting or engaging with a fake news post, their threshold for sharing or engaging with the same post may be lowered. This experience may also be heightened due to the social validation that many users on social media may seek out. When they notice many of their friends engaging with or supporting the post, and if it is shared with them, they may feel pulled to do the same. Furthermore, the structure of a social network may play a role in these processes as well. If a person who is highly influential or popular within a network shares, engages with or supports a post containing misinformation, this could impact the spread of it within the rest of the network. Information cascades, network effects, and other social mechanisms play a large role in the spread of online misinformation.
Article: https://pirg.org/edfund/articles/misinformation-on-social-media/