Information Cascades & Abortion
People’s lives are dictated by choices. What time do I wake up? When do I eat today? How do I arrive at this location? People may look up factors and conduct an analysis based on the information presented to them about how to best reach their goals. Moreover, this analysis usually is also influenced by the experiences of others who face similar struggles and their decisions. If several people make a similar choice, one will be more likely to choose a similar decision, even if their other research points to make a different choice, as they may think that the previous people may have had other insight that they didn’t, explaining why their decision was such. This effect can be referred to as an information cascade. Information cascades are the actions that one makes as a result of the information one receives, both formally and through assumption [1].
However, basing your actions off of others and their supposed knowledge presents its limitations. Biases, misinformation, and other errors may impact the ultimate decisions people make. An information cascade immersed in misinformation is the Spanish abortion misinformation situation. According to NPR, there is a large issue of abortion misinformation spreading in Hispanic Communities [2]. A major source of this misinformation occurred from social media posts by a political group, the Floridanos con Marco, who are blatantly saying falsehoods in hopes of changing people’s electoral votes. This information, along with information from other sources, gets passed through the community via social media, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
The herding model, as outlined in Networks, Crowds, and Markets, can be used to explore the information cascade formed by this situation [1]. Under the herding model, each person has their own private information generated by their research but also information provided by knowing everyone’s choices. One person, Person A, could have messaged abortion information knowingly false. Person B could have come to the same conclusion as Person A with their limited knowledge and could corroborate their answer by forwarding the same message to others. Similarly, Person C could corroborate Person A and B. Thereafter, every person after Person C can run their own analysis and potentially will realize that the information shows that the previous claims made about abortions were false; however because they hear that Person A, B, and C all came to the same conclusion, they may think these three people may have other insight that they do not and will agree with the choice that they had made, rather than going with the one that was generated through their research. Thus, this information cascade spread misinformation rapidly, resulting in the potential practice of dangerous beliefs and practices, influencing people to make their medical and political choices under false notions.
Sources:
[1] https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/networks-book-ch16.pdf
[2]https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/03/1133743997/doctors-and-advocates-tackle-a-spike-of-abortion-misinformation-in-spanish