Lecture 10 Flashcards
Fake news, false news, disinformation
Truth / accuracy information necessary for human behaviour
Both true and false news can spread rapidly on social media
False news has influenced politics, affected stock market, hindered emergency response
Truth has become (more) politicized
How quickly does true/false news spread on Twitter?
What are the causes of this?
Studying the spread of false news
Start from tweet containing news url
(n≈126k)
Determine truth (fact checking site)
Find all (in)direct retweets (=rumor cascade) (n≈4.5M retweets by n≈3M users)
The spread of false news: conclusions
False news spreads faster than true news (on Twitter)
This is not caused by the centrality of the poster
False news seems more newsworthy
(and you can ‘easily’ replicate this study!)
Who profits from fake news?
- Political gain
- Politicians can discredit opponents, stir up emotions (e.g. fear of the ‘other’)
Anti-system politicians / rogue actors profit from uncertainty and doubt
(see also Entman & Usher, 2018, Framing in a Fractured Democracy)
- Monetary gain
At least 235M$ spent on ads on (known) fake news site
Low income per site, but very cheap to set up
Fake news can easily generate a lot of clicks
Response from ad companies might be to block ‘long tail’ of news sites
Braun & Eklund (2019). Fake news, real money: Ad tech platforms, profit-driven hoaxes, and the business of journalism.
American Press Institute: How Misinformation Makes Money
Deep fakes and fake news
“Deep learning” AI to transplant ‘source’ actor over existing ‘target’ video
Most common use case: putting real people on porn videos
Apps readily available (but for now require a lot of material)
Possible dangers:
–> Making fake video look real
–> Making real video look fake
–> Increasing Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, and Distrust
What is ‘fake news’?
False news: news that is not true
Fake news (=misinformation): purposefully false news
Disinformation: fake news spread in order to cause political effect
Possible Fixes fake news
1: Fact checking
2: Media Literacy
3: Changes to platform (news) algorithms
4: Government regulation
Possible Fixes 1: Fact checking
Seemingly elegant solution, however:
Often too late, only seen by people disinclined to believe the fake news
People reject/ignore attitude-incongruent news
(selective exposure, confirmation bias, desirability bias)
Can even harm: facts are remembered better than context
(effect of fake news flagging by platforms not reported,
but raises question of who determines truth)
Possible Fixes 2: Media Literacy
Often aimed at (secondary) eduction
Long-term effects very hard to study
Could be counter-productive if overly critical of media
Requires more rigorous evaluation
Possible fixes 3: Changes to platform (news) algorithms
Facebook, Twitter et al. could change algorithm settings
(cf. whistleblower, debate positions)
No personalization of political content
Signals about quality of news
Remove bots from network
Platforms profess to be interested in this, however:
It goes against their profit motive
Platforms do not provide the information needed to scrutinize
- (and do we trust the platforms?)
Possible fixes 4: Government regulation
Attractive but risky
Who determines what is true?
cf. Trump’s ‘fake news network’; EU ruling on GeenStijl
Undesirable to censor political speech
Can be used by illiberal governments to curb speech
Possibilities to use judiciary?
Possible Fixes: Conclusion
Regulation of (sociale) media:
- By the government (problematic)
- By the media/platforms themselves (who watches the watchers)
- By some “independent committee” (but who?)
Informed citizens:
- Fact checking (good idea, but: too late, confirmation / exposure bias)
- Media literacy (might work, could also undermine trust, very hard to study)
- Re-evaluate role of the news media?
1947 Hutchins Committee
The press plays an important role in the development and stability of modern society and, as such, it is imperative that a commitment of social responsibility be imposed on mass media
[which implies] factual accuracy, promotion of open debate, representation of diverse views [..] a watchdog against government abuse
Trust in news as a public good
Good news is crucial for society
Information for daily decisions
Watchdog of politics, corporations etc.
Shared ‘ground truth’ of facts indispensable for public sphere, mutual understanding
News is vulnerable
No news without trust
Low institutional embedding (compared to e.g. judiciary)
Technological developments (fragmentation, social media, algorithms, deep fakes)
Actors with interest in undermining trust and media (Russia, Trump, …)
What is “trust in the news”?
Trust that journalists will produce ‘correct’ news in the future
even if it’s generally impossible to check
Trust in the media as part of institutional trust
Based on institutional norms/logic/values rather than individual trust in a journalist
Correlates strongly with trust in other institutions (politics, science, judiciary, etc.)
Why is trust diminishing?
Commercialisation & fragmentation of news
Cappella & Jamieson: Cynismespiraal
Van Aelst et al: High choice media environment (wk 13)
Ideology: extremism, polarisation (wk 14)
Hostile Media Effect
Cultural shift towards individualism/neo-liberalism (cf. mediatisation)
Technological changes: social/digital media, deep fakes (Bennett & Livingston)
Algorithms, rogue actors (Entman & Usher)
Effects of diminished trust
Consequences for the media
“Ontological security”: lack of shared worldview / grounded truth
“Credibility Cues and Fake News”:
–> Institutional media important cue to determine truth
–> What can we replace it with?
Overall conclusions
Society requires news, news requires trust
but trust and truth are harder to get by
Fake news both effect and cause of diminished trust
Fake news spreads because it’s “a good story”?
Technology contributes to spreading fake news
Fake news can be profitable (financially and politically)
Populist politicians (and rogue actors) can profit from decrease in trust
How to fix it?
‘Easy’ fixes such as media literacy, fact checking might not be effective
Regulation is hard, but may be required
What role should the platforms / social media companies have?
