Why do people believe fake news?
Research has shown that people are overly believing of news that aligns with their partisanship (their strong support for a political party, group, or cause). It makes sense that people are more likely to trust something if it is in support of what they believe. But if we start to believe false information advocating for a group or cause that we support, it can lead to a lack of tolerance of other beliefs which ultimately can cause stereotypical ideologies and prejudice. However, there may be other reasons that people tend to believe false information presented to them.
A key concept in psychology is that cognition can be split into two types of processing: Type 1 (automatic processing)) and Type 2 (slower, deliberate processing). We can use this to help explain the response we have to fake news. If we use type 2 processing where we are analytical of the information we are receiving, we are less likely to fall for fake news, while relying solely on type 1 processing means that we instinctively believe whatever is put in front of us.
Another reason some people are inclined to believe fake news is if they have had previous exposure to similar or the same news headline. It has actually been proven that people will believe a news headline even if it is highly implausible and inconsistent with a person’s political beliefs if they have heard a similar story before.
Finally, people are much more likely to believe a false news headline if the source is credible. Social media has aided this with the addition of likes and shares. If a headline/post on social media has thousands of views and likes people are more inclined to believe it is true.
Why is Fake News so Harmful?
The term ‘fake news’ has been around for a very long time, but many people believe it was coined in 2016, mainly because of how prominent it became during the presidential election. Fake news stories favouring Trump in the election were shared over 30 million times whilst ones favouring Clinton were shared around 8 million times. Over half of Americans who recalled seeing fake news stories then said they believed them. We can see what impact this may have had. Fake news can and will impact what people think and when it comes to something as important as elections it could have detrimental consequences.
Fake news also dominated the media during the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of false information resulted in vaccine avoidance, mask refusal, discrimination and reliance on false remedies. This not only put individuals at a higher risk, but it also made it so much harder for governments to implement policies to keep the public safe because people refused to follow them due to fake information being spread online.
How can we learn to differentiate between what is fake and what is real online?
A lot of what can be done to stop the spread of fake news falls to the publishers and owners of certain social media apps. For example, attaching warnings on social media posts that fact-checkers have found to be false or social media algorithms could help by ensuring that inaccurate posts are less likely to be seen by people.
One thing that we, as consumers, can do so that we stop falling victim to fake news is to consider the agenda of the publisher. Is this an individual on social media aiming to get views? Is it a news organisation with biases which is only considering one side of a story? Or is it a political campaign whose only aim is to make 1 group look good? By taking a moment to think about why this headline has been shared we could stop ourselves from believing or sharing something false.
One technique often used in fake news is shocking and emotive language. If a piece of information evokes strong emotions from you it could be a sign that it is false. Fake news often provokes these strong emotions because the person/group responsible want it to be shared as much as possible and the more shocking it is the more likely people are to spread it.
Conclusion
There are a lot of reasons why fake news still seems to be prevalent online despite people being aware it exists. It may be the instinctive want to believe something that aligns with your views or the lack of analytical thinking when it comes to reading information online that mean we continue to fall for fake stories. The harm false information can cause is disastrous and it has been shown time and time again. To stop the impact that fake news has we need to learn to differentiate between what is false and what is true. This can be so difficult online but it always best to stop and think: why has this been posted? And who has posted this?
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