Fake News and Game Theory
The topic of “Fake News” has been relevant as well as prominent in recent news ever since the 2016 election. In this article, Jeff Ely, a professor of Economics at Northwestern University uses the Fake News phenomena as an example of Game Theory. Specifically, he analyzes Facebook’s role in displaying pieces of news on someone’s feed, and potentially affecting their perspective on the 2016 presidential election. Initially he introduces the two main players, the author of the fake news as well as the intended reader. In the scenario with just two players, assuming the players have knowledge of one another, the reader (player two) may have doubts when encountering the article upon first glance. Armed with the knowledge of player one (the author), the reader is inherently aware of potential malicious intent; because the reader is aware that there may be fake news pieces out there, the reader now has a sense of caution and approaches every news article with this knowledge. In class, we discussed a two player scenario in which each player has a strategy that depends on whether or not they are conscious of the second player’s actions and perspective.
He then introduces a third player, Mark Zuckerberg. Ely argues that by filtering the news stories on people’s feeds in order to account for fake news, Facebook becomes a third player. He outlines two main effects that filtering has on the game, and the first is that the reader is less likely to be cautious and apprehensive when stumbling across a news article because with this filter in place, it can be argued that they are less likely to see fake news articles. The second effect is deemed a “strategic incentive” from the author’s (of the fake news piece) point of view. The incentive lies in the environment. Now that Facebook has created this platform that is perceived as a safe haven from fake news, it becomes an even more desirable space to introduce a fake news article. The viewers think of Facebook as having no fake news articles, therefore the author (player one) is less likely to be caught. It is interesting how the introduction of a third player into the game completely alters both original players’ strategies.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/12/economics-explainer-using-fake-news/