The spread of fake news and misinformation is a growing threat to our way of life, with a profound impact on everything from democratic elections to our response to the coronavirus pandemic.  New research from New York University finds that often, people are more engaged with fake news than they are with legitimate news.

The study revealed that not only are official fact-checking services highly trusted, but that credibility alerts placed alongside headlines can be effective in halting the spread of misinformation, although the impact is influenced by our political persuasion.

The research tested four credibility indicators that were displayed alongside each headline:

• Fact Checkers: “Multiple fact-checking journalists dispute the credibility of this news”
• News Media: “Major news outlets dispute the credibility of this news”
• Public: “A majority of Americans disputes the credibility of this news”
• AI: “Computer algorithms using AI dispute the credibility of this news”

“We wanted to discover whether social media users were less apt to share fake news when it was accompanied by one of these indicators and whether different types of credibility indicators exhibit different levels of influence on people’s sharing intent,” the researchers explain. “But we also wanted to measure the extent to which demographic and contextual factors like age, gender, and political affiliation impact the effectiveness of these indicators.”

Fake news

Over 1,500 participants were shown a series of headlines that were either true, false, or satirical.  Only the false and satirical headlines had any kind of credibility indicator (in the form of red text below the headline).  For each headline, the volunteers were asked to say whether they would share the article, and why.

“Upon initial inspection, we found that political ideology and affiliation were highly correlated to responses and that the strength of individuals’ political alignments made no difference, whether Republican or Democrat,” the researchers say. “The indicators impacted everyone regardless of political orientation, but the impact on Democrats was much larger compared to the other two groups.”

The results revealed that the most effective of the four credibility indicators was the fact checker, which resulted in 43% fewer non-true headlines being shared, compared to 25% for the ‘news media’ tool, 22% for the ‘public’ option, and 22% for the ‘AI’ tool.

Partisan leaning

The results were sadly not uniform across the political spectrum, however.  For instance, the AI-based credibility indicator actually led Republicans to share fake news more frequently!

When the fact checker indicator was used, Democrats were far more likely to heed the warning, with 61% fewer articles shared.  For Republicans, the figure was just 19%.

With fact-checkers the most effective intervention across the political spectrum, it might appear the best approach, but it’s also the most labor-intensive approach.  With the automated approach producing completely the wrong response, among Republicans at least, it highlights the nature of the problem.  The researchers take these findings and explore potential ways forward.

“This could include applying fact checks to only the most-needed content, which might involve applying natural language algorithms. So, it is a question, broadly speaking, of how humans and AI could co-exist,” they say.

The data also found that men were about 1.5 times more likely to share a fake headline than women, with the researchers believing men were less influenced by credibility indicators, with the main reason for sharing fake news reported to be because they were considered funny.

As misinformation becomes more pervasive, and more powerful, a growing body of research aims to understand how its spread can be stopped.  This research is an interesting addition to that canon.