13 Reasons Why People Believe Fake News

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13 Reasons Why People Believe Fake News

🔥 Propaganda and fake news in social media have become a real and major threat to our society. Let's try together to build our understanding of this ugly phenomenon. To get started, here are some simple questions and answers about fake news:

WHAT IS FAKE NEWS? DEFINITION

• According to Wikipedia, "Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news."
• I suggest this definition is better: "Fake news is false and intentionally misleading information presented as news."
  In my opinion, news that is only false (wrong) is not fake news. Likewise, news that is misleading due to some mistake is also not fake news. The intention to mislead the receivers is essential.
• The picture below is showing various categories of fake news.
  
  

WHY DID FAKE NEWS BECOME SO OMNIPRESENT? CAUSES

1. Apparently it works (for people who try to manipulate other people).
2. Social media act as a catalyst (= accelerator). Social media companies earn money by spreading outspoken, oversimplified opinions. It causes a lot of reactions and traffic on their websites. Let's skip this point here and leave it to the regulators.
3. Little is and can be done to stop it in a free society. I also skip this point for now.
4. People apparently believe it. This reason is perhaps most interesting for this knowledge center (confirmation bias).

WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE FAKE NEWS?

This is an interesting question that seems to have been somewhat neglected. Possible explanations are:

1. Confirmation bias: the human tendency to search for, select, or interpret information in a way that confirms our preconceptions and prior beliefs. Social networks reinforce this tendency of people due to the way they are set up in various groups of likeminded "friends".
   But according to Serra-Garcia and Gneezy there is more to it. In a series of experiments they found 2 more reasons why we believe fake news (in social media):
2. We are overconfident and bad at detecting lies. We believe we are good at judging if some story of claim is true, but we're just not!
3. We tend to over-rely on shared content. If somebody else shares some info we get more interested (especially if it's by people we know).

⇨ Do you see other reasons for fake news to have become so prominent?
⇨ Perhaps you see other reasons explaining why people believe it?

Source: Serra-Garcia, M. and Gneezy U. (2021), "Mistakes, Overconfidence, and the Effect of Sharing on Detecting Lies", American Economic Review Vol. 111, No. 10, pp. 3160-83.

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		4 Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar India
	Why People are Believing in Fake News Believing in fake news is also a 4. Sort of distraction in order to experience/feel a flow condition. Engagement levels are typically low and will be decreased further if one were to start believing fake news. A change at tendency level can happen by competency building, making opposite suggestions available repeatedly and daily to the context of the receiver. Such a practice is very effective in achieving increased engagement levels. Such suggestions could include satyavrata (truth as resolution) and satyaroopa (very pure form of truth).

		3 Norman Dragt Netherlands
	Laziness of the Human Brain What I am missing in this list of why people believe fake news is the 5. Laziness of the human brain when it comes to new information. Our brain does not use logical reasoning to investigate new information, but uses social cues and prior knowledge. This is of course because evolutionary it turned out to be advantageous to use prior knowledge and social cues to evaluate new knowledge. Our predecessors who went along with the opinion of others and used prior knowledge to assess new knowledge had a greater chance of survival and therefore passing on their genes. Where critical thinkers still are more prone to not leaving behind offspring and thus not passing on their critical genes. Biases are an expression of our brains laziness. It is how our brains work. Information that is closely related to what we already know and that is often heard is believed sooner than information that is new and different. Also information that is told to us by people we know and how have proven in the past to be reliable sources of information is believed sooner than new information. So what we really need to uncover fake news is asking questions, just like Socrates did. Questions like: Who told you this? Where did you learn this? How does this relate to this other information? Why does this part of your message seem to contradict this other part? What is your goal with telling this? You could also use three questions to decide: Is it true? Is it good? Is it necessary? To decide if you want to believe news.

		3 Flavio Farah Professor
	Lack of Critical Thinking People also believe in fake news because they have 6. No / Lack of critical thinking. Lack of critical thinking is a frequent characteristic among people with authoritarian personality.

		5 John Henry Project Manager, United States
	Why we Believe Fake News...... Why we Believe Rumors and Bad Things About People... Fake news is an extension of the negative communication called gossip. We hear it, and want to believe it because it confirms bad things about someone else, it brings someone else down. Fake news is taking a single event and extrapolating it into a flawed character narrative. And since the world has become "smaller" with the improvements in communication, we can now hear about many things that happen in the same day, and we automatically connect them together. An earth quake, here, a tornado there, a tropical weather system and the collapse of a glacier somewhere else, are then connected together because they happen at the same time, someone assumes they have a common cause, and then a global reason is applied. Back to most of the fake news being about a single individual, it is usually proposed by someone in opposition to that individual, and then it is picked up by others who are in opposition. We thus 7. Gang up on the individual we "do not like" in an effort to decrease their popularity and their power or influence. This has been happening in small coffee shops and restaurants for ages, it is gossip, nothing verified, nothing proven, just rumors, fueled by dislike and jealousy, and rolled into a large ball as more and more repeat it. AND, with the repetition, it takes on the appearance of "fact, or TRUTH" not because it is factually verified, but simply because it is repeated. Other items that are fed by this gossip news, - Children commit suicide at alarming rates because of the gossip, rumors, bullying that take place in social media. This is a factual trend, not gossip. - Others feeling victimized, strike out at someone they perceive as the cause, often hurting or even killing others through apparent random violence. - And we hear about all of it because of the connectedness of local news to national to global news. These things are happening more as more and more people identify their worth through social media.

		2 Pierre Lesage Student (University), Canada
	Social Media are Accelerating Fake News Believing in Fake News is largely based on what has been discussed on this page. I would add a certain 8. Laxity in criticism based on a polarization of discourse, with lots of remarks without nuance...

		3 parmeggiani Manager, Italy
	Fake News and Paranoid Thinking A little help from the psychoanalytic and psychiatric perspective. Many of us are affected by different degrees of 9. Paranoid thinking, be it in the neurotic or (more dangerously) in the psychotic ...

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Wow You all wowed me… 9 causes already why people believe fake news. And all with good arguments. No fake news here at 12manage, remember that 👊 Keep going! You might rate the ones you think are ...

		1 Norman Dragt Netherlands
	The Effect of Social Influence Another factor in believing fake news, is our 10. Need to be social and receive attention and praise from others. Most humans need constant confirmation of the goodness of their personality and (fake...

		3 Borje Vickberg Sweden
	Conspiracy Theories and Fake News If you want to recognize fake news you better be aware of 11. Conspiracy theories. What are conspiracy theories really? Based on the current state of research, I believe the following are significant...

		4 Helen Strong Business Consultant, South Africa
	Why People Think Fake News is Real 12. Creators of fake news are masters of their art Firstly, to distribute their propaganda they put in place a wide, unsuspecting social media chain. This is done through hacking into databases and s...

		3 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	The Faking of Trust Accepting all the reasons given, there seems to be an underlying factor. 13. The lack of trust. (The majority of?) people have "learned" that those whom we should trust —be they in political, econom...

		2 Gehrig Wiles Management Consultant, United States
	Low Information Voters I agree with #5 by @Norman Dragt: Most people are too lazy to try to find out the truth, believing: "There are no versions of the truth. Truth is singular. All its versions are mistruths." ....

		2 Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	Truth and Falsehood It is very interesting to discuss such things as truth and falsehood, right and wrong, belief and unbelief. I think in connection with this topic it will be useful to recall the DIKW (data, informatio...

		2 Antonio Lopez Mexico
	Truth is Relative Anything can't BE and NOT BE at the same time and on same circumstances. However, everybody can believe in their "own truth". It doesn't matter if "my truth" is not supported with facts; it is "my tru...

		2 Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	Relative Truth and the Absolute Truth I agree with Antonio Lopez that there is absolute or actual truth (supported by facts) and relative truth (someone's personal interpretation of reality). A huge number of books have been written on ho...

		3 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Let's Ban and Abolish the Terms: 'Relative Truth' and 'Fake News'! I agree with the difference between relative and absolute truth, but I suggest to put the term "Relative Truth" where it belongs: in the wastebasket 🗑️! Using this term is greatly help...