Fake news has shown its capacity for undermining our democracy, as misinformation is pumped out on everything from healthcare to politics.  New research from Lancaster University suggests an unlikely source could help us to better spot fake news.

The researchers believe that there are numerous written similarities in the way fake news is presented to the April Fools hoaxes that are published each year.  They gathered up over 500 April Fools stories published over the past 14 years to analyze the writing style.

“April Fools hoaxes are very useful because they provide us with a verifiable body of deceptive texts that give us an opportunity to find out about the linguistic techniques used when an author writes something fictitious disguised as a factual account,” the researchers explain. “By looking at the language used in April Fools and comparing them with fake news stories we can get a better picture of the kinds of language used by authors of disinformation.”

The structure of April Fools

The researchers began by comparing authentic news stories with those published on April Fools, with a number of stylistic differences emerging.  These included the level of detail used in the story, their sense of vagueness, the complexity of the language and formality of writing style.

They then followed this initial analysis with a second where they compared April Fools stories with those identified as fake news.  Interestingly, the April Fools stories had much more in common with the fake news stories than they did authentic news stories.

Both fake news and April Fools stories tend to use less complex language, for instance, with key information such as names, places, dates and times used less frequently.  Such stories tend to commonly use proper nouns however, such as the name of politicians.

The researchers found that April fools hoax stories, when compared to genuine news:

• Are generally shorter in length
• Use more unique words
• Use longer sentences
• Are easier to read
• Refer to vague events in the future
• Contain more references to the present
• Are less interested in past events
• Contain fewer proper nouns
• Use more first person pronouns

Fake news stories, when compared to genuine news:

• Are shorter in length
• Are easier to read
• Use simplistic language
• Contain fewer punctuation marks
• Contain more proper nouns
• Are generally less formal – use more first names such as ‘Hillary’ and contain more profanity and spelling mistakes
• Contain very few dates
• Use more first person pronouns

Spotting fake news

The researchers used this information to develop a machine learning classifier to help them correctly identify whether a story was an April Fools, a fake news story, or an authentic piece.  When the tool was tested, it was able to identify April Fools with 75% accuracy, and fake news with 72% accuracy.

“Looking at details and complexities within a text are crucial when trying to determine if an article is a hoax. Although there are many differences, our results suggest that April Fools and fake news articles share some similar features, mostly involving structural complexity,” the authors conclude.  “Our findings suggest that there are certain features in common between different forms of disinformation and exploring these similarities may provide important insights for future research into deceptive news stories.”