The spread of true and false news online
science.sciencemag.org
The spread of true and false news online
1–10 of 36 posts
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#2tl;dr False news is usually more interesting because it doesn't have to be true and so it spreads faster
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#3> It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10. As the truth never diffused beyond a depth of 10, we saw that falsehood reached a depth of 19 nearly 10 times faster than the truth reached a depth of 10
The study attributes most of that force multiplier to novelty and surprise, where falsehood will always have an advantage; important things that actually happen are often not surprising. Maybe people who wrap truth in clickbaity headlines are actually heroes, trying to even out the playing field... I never really thought of it that way before.
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#4At some point will the online populace be inoculated from "new surprising info" that isn't verified?
ie, distrust all news until there's corroboration?
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#5While not surprising that hyperbole and bombastic claims would fare better than run of the mill news stories or opinions, seems strange to consider all tweets as news stories. Also, their cited sources of truth are overtly biased with respect to politics.
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#6This study is suspect because it does not reference propaganda history or research. It does not even use the word. Also the mechanism of defining truth is suspect: it is always possible to find several sources that agree on something and several others that disagree. There seems not much emphasis on primary sources.
Please research the history of propaganda in the United States for yourself. See articles on Edward Bernays and documentaries like The Century of the Self. Research terms like "the fourth estate".
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#7> It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10. As the truth never diffused beyond a depth of 10, we saw that falsehood reached a depth of 19 nearly 10 times faster than the truth reached a depth of 10 The study attributes most of that force multiplier to novelty and surprise, where falsehood will always have an advantage;…
Here's an antidote:
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#8It’s so easy to put anything on the internet and anyone could do that. I think most of the times is that people responsible for posting for bigger audience just don’t bother to check the source and publish news based on Joe Blogs tweet or post.
The truth is there are not many good journalists who cares and it’s more about making clicks rather than produce rich content.
Don’t think there is anything we can do about false news. Just learn how to live with it.
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#9> It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10. As the truth never diffused beyond a depth of 10, we saw that falsehood reached a depth of 19 nearly 10 times faster than the truth reached a depth of 10 The study attributes most of that force multiplier to novelty and surprise, where falsehood will always have an advantage;…
Absolutely, I know several journalists who think about how to pitch the "health food" of boring, but important articles with clickbait titles.
Another question to ask: In old print media, is it ok to have crazily sensationalistic headlines on the front page, with the hope that it gets people read the thoughtful journalism underneath?
Just to give you a sense, I took 1.5 years of death coverage in the NY Times and compared to actual deaths. My gut is that the reason for the coverage gap is primarily a function of reader interest, which presumably gets people to read more:
https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html
As the old aphorism goes, "if it bleed, it leads"
Re: The spread of true and false news online
#10While not surprising that hyperbole and bombastic claims would fare better than run of the mill news stories or opinions, seems strange to consider all tweets as news stories. Also, their cited sources of truth are overtly biased with respect to politics.
"We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications."
>> What cited sources of truth are overtly biased?