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A study shows that misinformation spreads faster and farther than correct information:
An analysis of news stories tweeted by three million people between 2006 and 2017 shows that fake news spreads significantly more than the truth on social media.
[...] Truthful tweets took six times as long as fake ones to spread across Twitter to 1,500 people – in large part because falsehoods in the sample were 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than the truth, even after accounting for account age, activity level and their number of followers. The most viral fake news was political in nature.
The study was carried out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Social Machines.
From The Inquirer.net : False stories travel way faster than the truth, says study
and New Scientist : Fake news travels six times faster than the truth on Twitter
and The Economist : On Twitter, falsehood spreads faster than truth.
(Score: 3, Funny) by requerdanos on Saturday March 10 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
This may be due to confirmation bias. Major recent double-blind university and government studies show that data packets (analgous to the "twit tweetrs" or whatever in TFA) travel at the same average speed over a given network if they are sent encrypted, such that their truth or falsity can be neither known nor represented. This was confirmed by the FBI, Microsoft, and the Greater Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, and it was on Mythbusters. So it is known to be the truth and not fake news.
I don't know why this effect breaks down when the contents are known and people post on social media. Total head-scratcher.
By the way, forward this major recent study to everyone in your address book unless you hate Jesus and want him to kill twenty kittens and a puppy.
Like = One of the elite smart people who know where that +1 button is and how to use it
Share = Smart person who recognizes the truth and fights fake news #PowerToUsMorons.
Ignore = Person who hates the truth and hates kittens and puppies and Jesus
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @08:46PM
This may be due to confirmation bias.
That was my guess too. But that would also have to be studied.
Our news organizations even follow the method to tweak us. They use inflammatory headlines to draw us in.
"Fake News" is an amazing loaded term. Whoever invented it, my tip of the hat to them. It allows people to use their own cognitive bias to disregard what they do not like and forward along what they do. Pity it blew back on them.