C sums of light | Don't take sharing of fake news as a social interaction

Author: Deputy Director and Master of Journalism Department of Zhang Tiantian Shenzhen University School of Communication

I wonder if you still remember the largest fake news research we have mentioned so far? In 2018, the "Science" magazine published a research report on social media written by three researchers in MIT. This study analyzed the spread of 126,000 in the past 12 years. It is 6 times faster! This discovery is really shocking, so that other discoveries in research are easily ignored. In fact, there are several interesting and discovery of people's reflection in this study.

Who should be responsible for the spread of fake news on social media?

Fake news runs so fast, is it because the people who spread fake news have a greater influence on social media. But in fact, it's not. Studies have found that compared with those who spread real news, people who spread fake news in Twitter do not have a high degree of activity: there are few fans, few people pay attention, and even the account is rarely passed by Twitter certification. From this point of view, isn't social media spreading fake news?

Several researchers also thought: Will the social media robots that can automatically capture information and repost the reposting will be the main force of spreading fake news on social media? However, after using two different robot detection algorithms on the 3 million Twitter user samples, they found that the robot was exactly the same speed when spreading fake news and real news. It seems that the existence of automatic robots cannot explain the huge difference in the speed of transmission of authentic and false news. Researchers particularly emphasized in the text that fake news is "because humans are more likely to spread them, not robots." It is our human beings that should be responsible for the transmission of the virus of fake news.

"I am one of you"

So why do people share fake news on social media? First of all, it is clear that social media does play a very important role in fake news communication. A study in 2018 found that the number of people browsing fake news websites is actually far less than the number of people who browse regular news websites, but these people often have longer Internet access time, and through social media connections The information spread quickly. It can be seen that in the current spread of fake news, social media plays the role of transit stations and amplification stations.

We should also understand that people's information sharing on social media is not simple information transmission or diffusion, and behind it also contains people's social interaction and emotional communication. For example, people will "presented themselves" by sharing fake news. At this time, people are not judging the authenticity of the information when sharing fake news, but using these fake news to explain themselves. This kind of sharing of fake news is not essentially different from us to repost songs and photos in the circle of friends. Whether in the circle of friends who reposted the so -called Mr. Yang Yan's "100 -year -old speech" or expressing the shock and anger of "Chinese villages that collapse and badness", they all hope to let others see "who am I" and "I am I am" What kind of person "is performing a certain self -performance (Note: The two cases mentioned here are false information). Sometimes, expressing their needs or even surpassing the information itself, so that people have a blind eye to the content of actual sharing.

For another example, people also use sharing fake news to interact with others. Andy Guess, a professor at the Department of Political and Public Affairs of Princeton University, once pointed out that many times people spread fake news just to share with friends and have no misleading intention. When people pass the information to other members in the group, they actually just want to express "I am one of you." For example, when you see a multi -person forwarding in the circle of friends but the loss of information of the loss of the child, you even just read the title without hesitation. On the one hand Based on this, we have strengthened their identity and sense of belonging. You want to explain: like everyone, I am full of love.

Forgot to judge before sharing

From this point of view, the sharing of fake news is a very complicated behavior, and there may be a diverse motivation behind it. So, is there any such sharing behavior that may reduce people, or make people more cautious when sharing? A study published in March last year may provide us with a little idea.

This large -scale study recruited more than 5,000 respondents from the United States and completed a total of 7 experiments. In the experiment, the researchers discovered an interesting phenomenon: Although most of the participants said that when they were sharing decisions on social media, compared to the political bias and interest of sharing content, the accuracy of the sharing content was that they were more. In order to value factors, people with a high proportion of actual evaluation still choose to share fake news that consistent with their political stance. In other words, people value the accuracy of content, but in reality, people still share fake news. Share disconnect between decision -making and content accuracy.

In the following experiments, the researchers found that in fact, as long as some small links are added, the chance of people sharing fake news can be effectively reduced. If the participants should be prompted to judge the accuracy and authenticity of the content of the news, and then provide them with half -news samples to read, the possibility of participants will effectively reduce the possibility of fake news. To verify this discovery, the researchers conducted many experiments and finally confirmed this conclusion. In the end, the researchers proposed that if the participants' attention was transferred to accuracy (rather than other factors such as political bias, interesting and other factors) before sharing social media information, it can effectively reduce the possibility of people sharing fake news. Essence Because people are actually unwilling to share what they think they are not accurate and unreal. However, many times they forget the judgment before sharing.

This study brings us a lot of inspiration. Sharing or refusing fake news, many times the decision made in an instant. If at that moment, you can remind yourself to pay attention to the authenticity and accuracy of the content, and you will not be forwarded just for social needs. Still the sentence: unattended, not repost.

Source | Jingbao APP

Edit: Chen Jianguo

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