Every single day we wake up, we are bombarded with what is currently happening in the world. Some of the information we read is not truly transferred to us and some of them are just fake news. But how dangerous is the world of fake news? It is certainly more dangerous than you think it is, as humans are very susceptible to believing fake news. Of course, there are specific factors that affect this, such as age, the social media platform used, what you are looking at and so on. We promise that there is no fake news in this blog post 😉. In this article, we touch upon deepfakes, and fake news.

This article will cover the following points:

• Why does this topic matter?
• Fake news: What is it and what is the current evidence?
• Why do people fall for fake news?

Why does this topic matter?

Have you ever read a post on reddit, or something written on Wikipedia, which turned out to be wrong at the end? Well, you are not the only one. There are many people in the world who fall for the same mistake. They share the news before looking at how credible they are, and I think we probably have all done at least once. Also, did you know that it is cheaper and quicker to make fake news compared to traditional news? This is one of the reasons why people spread misinformation[7].

Image taken from here.

Thanks to the rising age of the internet, we are able to access whatever we want, whenever we want it. (In fact, you are reading this article to learn about fake news). There are many social media accounts and websites that spread misinformation, and this high availability greatly affects our generation’s ability to judge what is fake and what is not. Naturally, the age group that is most affected also depends on the type of social media used. At the moment, there is a lot of misinformation on Facebook about what COVID-19 is and how the vaccine works, and since the older generation uses Facebook more often, they are more prone to read the fake news and possibly believing it.

It is crucial to separate between what is real and what is not real. As humans, we are only going forward in terms of technological changes. One scary part of it is, how easy it is becoming to create fake videos of other people. This is also known as deepfake . It gives you the ability to change the face of a person in a video. Here is an example from a Buzzfeed video. Why is this dangerous? This can be used as propaganda against leaders in elections, or against actors. For instance, Emma Watson's face can be edited in a revenge porn scenario, or in a no-vax campaign video, even though she might support getting vaccinated.  Perhaps, one day we won’t be able to distinguish if the video is real or if it is fake[6].

Fake news: What is it and what is the current evidence?

Fake news is known as notions with a deceptive nature which make you question whether what you are reading is true or false. The definition is still being debated by many scholars in the field. A lot of the social media users are more susceptible to fake news than they probably think they are. Furthermore, many people are unaware of how this fake news can have an effect on them. This is due to the overconfidence in the information they hold[2].

Is there a bias to explain this overconfidence?

Yes: the Third Person Effect is defined as the overestimation of how media affects others’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, but how this is reversed when the person is making conclusions about themselves. Essentially, we overestimate how much the media influences others, but we underestimate how much it affects us!

A study on fake news showed this exact prediction; participants thought that their networks (i.e., friends and family) were influenced by certain fake news, while they were not themselves affected by them that much.

Another study looked at the student’s fake news judgement in Lebanon[3]. 60% of the students scored less than the average when it came to judging images, stories and articles. The interesting part is that 80% of the students said that they fact-check the information before they share it with others, but this is not what the authors found when they looked at the results. This shows an overconfidence effect in their abilities when it comes to fact-checking and looking at how credible the sources are .

In regards to age, many young adults find themselves arguing with the older generation when it comes to political matters. It should be noted that late adulthood is full of social changes where older adults are more likely to trust things easily and they get worse at detecting lies[1]. If the older adults are not used to the ever-changing world of social media, they might be more likely to get manipulated by fake news as well.

Why do people fall for fake news?

Confirmation Bias. When it comes to political motivations, we choose to ignore other present information and consume knowledge that is in line with what we think. When you are faced with facts that make you question your beliefs, your brain is  choosing between loyalty to a certain political identity and logic to evaluate information[5]. Sometimes our reasoning leaves us hanging. We truly fall for the trap because we are unable to tell whether something is true or false.

Heuristics. Another reason why people believe fake news can be explained by heuristics: when the human mind goes for the easy way out. Heuristics are literally mental shortcuts that we all use in our everyday life, and research in decision making demonstrates that we are more likely to use heuristics when judging what we read, hence any post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on.

Familiarity is another important aspect. How much you are exposed to a certain information, or much it's deemed truthful in your networks, affects what you believe in. judging something as truthful affects what you believe in. It’s the same as liking more who we see more often!

Source of the news matters a lot as well. People are more prone to believe people who are known as credible. These include influencers, politicians, or even people of older age or that we perceive as more powerful.

Lastly, the salient features seen in headlines can increase the chances of you falling for fake news. For example, there are many ads on Facebook that do not make sense, but they always have a shocking picture, or a title related to the fake news which makes you more likely to click and read into it[5].

In conclusion…

All in all, it is important that you educate yourself about fake news and always evaluate what you read before you share it with other people. Although it’s hard, check the credibility and the validity! A study showed that accurate identification of fake news is related to information-literacy education, that is being able to analyse, retrieve and process information. Thus, you should always keep yourself updated in the ever-changing world of tech[4] .

Are you still curious to learn more about the topic? Watch some of these videos:

1.       It’s getting harder to spot a deep fake video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoI9hAX9dw

2.       Fake News. It’s your fault. (TED Talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRPDwSSjdOM&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

3.       The rise of “fake news”, manipulation and alternative facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aTApGWVGoI&ab_channel=BBCNewsnight

4.       How false news can spread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSKGa_7XJkg&ab_channel=TED-Ed

References

1. Brashier, N. M., & Schacter, D. L. (2020). Aging in an era of fake news. Current directions in psychological science, 29(3), 316-323.

2. Corbu, N., Oprea, D. A., Negrea-Busuioc, E., & Radu, L. (2020). ‘They can’t fool me, but they can fool the others!’Third person effect and fake news detection. European Journal of Communication, 35(2), 165-180.

3.El Rayess, M., Chebl, C., Mhanna, J., & Hage, R. M. (2018). Fake news judgement: The case of undergraduate students at Notre Dame University-Louaize, Lebanon. Reference Services Review.

4.Jones-Jang, S. M., Mortensen, T., & Liu, J. (2021). Does media literacy help identification of fake news? Information literacy helps, but other literacies don’t. American Behavioral Scientist, 65(2), 371-388.

5.Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). The psychology of fake news. Trends in cognitive sciences.

6.Westerlund, M. (2019). The emergence of deepfake technology: A review. Technology Innovation Management Review, 9(11).

7.Zhou, X., & Zafarani, R. (2018). Fake news: A survey of research, detection methods, and opportunities. arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.00315, 2.