Fake or Fact: Evaluating news, information, and sources: Journal Articles

Fake news is easy to spot if you know how

This article examines three ratings to determine the veracity of news reports—expert, article, and user source.

"Fake news" has existed at least since the early nineteenth century. But as mainstream media becomes increasingly polarized in the twenty-first century, and as technology makes it easier than ever to set up a "news" site online, false stories are spreading faster and more widely than ever before. The popularity of social media also makes it easier than ever for fake news stories to take hold and "go viral" before anyone can verify whether they are true.

Despite the increasing amount of false information online, there are ways to get to the truth and stop the spread of fake news.

The article examines efforts to combat fake news stories. Particular focus is given to how fake news is often spread via social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Additional topics discussed include stories relating to the 2016 Presidential Election in the U.S., how 44 percent of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook, rumor and gossip stories, and insights on the topic from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

News--real or fake--is now abundant on social media. News posts on social media focus users' attention on the headlines, but does it matter who wrote the article? We investigate whether changing the presentation format to highlight the source of the article affects its believability and how social media users choose to engage with it. We conducted two experiments and found that nudging users to think about who wrote the article influenced the extent to which they believed it. The presentation format of highlighting the source had a main effect; it made users more skeptical of all articles, regardless of the source's credibility. For unknown sources, low source ratings had a direct effect on believability. Believability, in turn, influenced the extent to which users would engage with the article (e.g., read, like, comment, and share). We also found confirmation bias to be rampant: users were more likely to believe articles that aligned with their beliefs, over and above the effects of other factors.

Three out of every four American adults are fooled by fake news headlines. That was the finding of a survey authorized by BuzzFeed.