False News: A Fading Novelty
Will Roth
Link: http://ide.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/2017%20IDE%20Research%20Brief%20False%20News.pdf
In “The Spread of True and False News Online”, researchers Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral provide a brief on their research of rumor cascades on Twitter. The researchers seek to rationalize how false news has become such a prevalent source of information through analyzing the spread of over 126,000 True and False News stories on Twitter. These stories were all “rumor cascades”, which start when a Twitter user makes a statement on a topic, and which is spread through retweets. The researchers used the categories of depth, size, maximum breadth, and structural virality to quantify the cascades. After conducting their research, they came to a striking conclusion–False news diffused much further and more efficiently in all categories. According to the researchers, “Analysis found that it took the truth approximately six times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of ten.” Digging deeper into these statistics in the context of information cascades in our networks class allows us to rationalize these seemingly counterintuitive conclusions.
The results of the study can be partially explained through explicit content learned within our networks class about how and why cascades spread. Cascades spread in networks for information-based reasons–the behavior of others provides in information which influences an individual’s decision. Furthermore, as more users share a false news story, more users are prone to share it as well since they see that people they trust are supporting the ideas. Moreover, users may use the ideas of others rather than their own intuition on validity, so false news stories are prone to gain steam even when completely ridiculous in isolation. Direct-benefit reasons for cascading information can be used to rationalize the faster diffusion of false news in direct comparison to accurate news. Indeed, users on Twitter are generally seeking to gain a greater following. Sharing more provocative information–even if the user does not truly agree with it–will likely generate more conversation and furthermore help them gain recognition and attention. To build upon this idea, the article maintains that “People thrive on novelty.” Indeed new and different information from a user portrays an image of that user as having a perspective which is deeply valuable in that it cannot be heard from many others. Different information also helps a user make their mark in that they are changing the perspective of others instead of simply confirming their preconceived notions. An interesting concept to think about once digesting these ideas and research is this: Since false news has now become more prevalent than accurate news in many respects, false news is quickly losing its novelty. Will users respond by championing accurate news in that this is now the unconventional decision to make, or will false news continue to spread in epic proportions?