Two Takeaways From The Newhouse School's #SUSocialDemocracy
On 07 January 2015, there were reports that a ghost ship filled with Ebola-infected rats was heading towards Florida. The article, originally posted by World News Daily Report, detailed that 17 crew members of the Guinean Luck were reported to have died from the Ebola hemorrhagic fever and the presence of thousands of rats infected with the disease aboard the ship, and could represent a major threat for the American population. Can you guess what the outcome of this situation was?
Nothing.
Nothing happened.
This was fake news.
There was never a ship carrying Ebola infested rats, 17 crew members never died and there was never even a ship named the Guinean Luck in the first place. The article even included a response from a fictitious coast guard official, James Fitzgerald. A direct quote from this official was included that read, “We are determined to protect the American population from this unique threat.” It continued to state, “There is no way we are going to let those disease-ridden rats set foot in the USA. We’re gonna find that ship and we’re gonna sink it!” Many viewers shared this fake news on social media to express their appalling emotions.
This fake article that circulated like a virus on social media is just one example of many fake news stories circulating online. This is the act of deception.
During the second panel discussion in the three-part Social Media and Democracy seminar series sponsored by the School of Information Studies (iSchool) and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, three scholars whose research focuses on fake news, language analysis and online influence, were featured.
The featured scholars were Rosanna Guadagno, researcher at Stanford University’s Online Influence Lab; Lilian Lee, professor of computer science and information science at Cornell University; and Victoria Rubin, professor of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario.
Here are two quick and important takeaways that will help you better understand fake news, language analysis and online influence.
Fake news is everywhere.
A recent study by the Knight Foundation and published by the nonprofit Project Information Literacy found that almost half of American college students surveyed said they lack confidence in discerning real form fake news on social media. Thirty-six percent of these students said that the threat of misinformation made them trust media less (Figure 1).
(Figure 1)
The researchers stated, “the rather contentious and poisonous public discourse around ‘fake news’ has substantially put young news consumers on guard about almost everything they see,” in a press release. In addition, when the study analyzed more than 135,000 tweets from college students, they found that students often cross-referenced their news with many other different sources because of the possibility of misinformation (Figure 2).
(Figure 2)
Victoria Rubin, panelist and professor of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario, describes this as deceptive communication. This means an individual or organization is attempting to influence through communication with the goal to create a false belief or false conclusion. Rubin also noted that in her own studies, an individual is 54 percent likely to notice deception. That leaves a large chance that a majority of other individuals are either least likely or not likely to notice deceptive communication tactics at all. Therefore, it is important to fact-check and cross reference sources to verify information is true and accurate.
Social validation can encourage the spread of fake news on social media.
An article by The Guardian shows why fake news travels on social media quicker than the truth, using a recent study by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study compared the emotional content of replies to true and false rumors by using 32,000 Twitter hashtags and a idiolect of about 140,000 English words that align with eight foundational human emotions: anger, fear, anticipation, trust, surprise, sadness, joy and disgust. Overall, the study found that about 126,000 rumors were spread by about 3 million people. False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. This was likely due to the degree of novelty and the emotional reactions of users.
Rosanna Guadagno, researcher at Stanford University’s Online Influence Lab also asserted that, “Likability does not change an individuals’ behavior, but how their peers felt did influence the behavior.” She continued, “People are more likely to share something that make them angry, or a similar feeling, and from someone who is not in their social network group.