New Research Finds That Regardless Of Political Party, Americans Share Fake News Online In Order To Fit In Within Their Social Circles
It doesn’t matter what political party you may belong to. According to recent research published by the American Psychological Association (APA), both liberal and conservative Americans actually share fake news to avoid being ostracized in social circles.
Matthew Asher Lawson, the study’s lead researcher, detailed how social pressure and conformity are significant motivators in the circulation of fake news.
“If someone in your online tribe is sharing fake news, then you feel pressure to share it as well, even if you don’t know whether it’s false or true,” Lawson said.
And this spread of misinformation only fuels the political polarization fire, creating a damaging cyclic effect.
Still, while the buzzword “fake news” has received a lot of air time on national news outlets, the proliferation of such misinformation is not always rooted in a call to action or sinister motives.
In fact, the researchers actually started studying this topic after realizing that people within their own networks on social media were sharing fake news. And the spread seemed to be without ideological purpose or malicious intent.
“Political ideology alone doesn’t explain people’s tendency to share fake news within their social groups. There are many factors at play, including the very basic desire to fit in and not be excluded,” Lawson explained.
One experiment conducted by the team analyzed the political ideology and tweets of over 50,000 Twitter user pairs in the United States. These tweets included the sharing of hyper-partisan or fake news from August 2020 to December 2020.
To determine political ideology, a network-based algorithm– that examines the types of Twitter accounts that users follow– was used.
Maksym Azovtsev – Stock.Adobe.com, illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Additionally, the number of tweets posted between Twitter user pairs within the same social circles was also calculated.
It was found that if one Twitter user shared a fake news story and another did not share the same story, then the pair of Twitter users were less likely to engage with each other online over time. Interestingly, this same effect was observed regardless of political ideology– although it was still stronger among right-leaning study participants.
Another experiment then examined 10,000 Twitter users who previously shared fake news in an earlier test. Additionally, a second group of Twitter users were also included, who were representative of general Twitter users.
It was revealed that Twitter account owners who shared fake news were actually more likely to exclude other Twitter users who did not reshare the same content. This finding indicated that social pressures “may be particularly acute” when it comes to fake news perpetuation.
Various other online experiments were conducted as well, and overall, individuals showed a reduced desire to engage with users in their social network who did not share the same fake news. At the same time, individuals who were more concerned about fitting in socially were also found to be more likely to share fake news.
The APA did note that despite fake news appearing “prolific,” previous research has indicated that only 0.15% of Americans’ daily media consumption is comprised of fake news. Plus, just 1% of individuals are behind 80% of the fake news sharing.
Regardless, Lawson reiterated how challenging it is to stop the spread of fake news since various factors contribute to people’s online behavior. At the same time, social media companies role in the matter is not always very clear.
Certain methods, known as “pre-bunking,” may be helpful for reducing the spread by informing people about how misinformation is perpetuated while highlighting just how important accurate news is.
“However, finding ways to ease the social pressure to conform in online spaces may be needed to start winning the war on misinformation,” Lawson concluded.
To read the study’s complete findings, visit the link here.
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