The science of fake news
Abstract
The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Already a Subscriber?Sign In
Supplementary Material
File (aao2998_lazer_sm.pdf)
References and Notes
1
C. Wardle, H. Derakhshan, “Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making” [Council of Europe policy report DGI(2017)09, Council of Europe, 2017]; https://firstdraftnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/PREMS-162317-GBR-2018-Report-de%CC%81sinformation-1.pdf?x29719.
2
A. Swift, Americans' trust in mass media sinks to new low (Gallup, 2016); www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx.
3
H. Allcott, M. Gentzkow, J. Econ. Perspect. 31, 211 (2017).
4
S. Vosoughi et al., Science 359, 1146 (2018).
5
J. Weedon et al., Information operations and Facebook (Facebook, 2017); https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/facebook-and-information-operations-v1.pdf.
6
O. Varol et al., in Proceedings of the 11th AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Montreal, 2017), pp. 280–289.
7
Senate Judiciary Committee, Extremist content and Russian disinformation online: Working with tech to find solutions (Committee on the Judiciary, 2017); www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/extremist-content-and-russian-disinformation-online-working-with-tech-to-find-solutions.
8
E. Ferrara, First Monday 22, 2017 (2017).
9
J. L. Kalla, D. E. Broockman, Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 112, 148 (2018).
10
B. Swire et al., J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 43, 1948 (2017).
11
U. K. H. Ecker et al., J. Appl. Res. Mem. Cogn. 6, 185 (2017).
12
C. Jones, Bill would help California schools teach about “fake news,” media literacy (EdSource, 2017); https://edsource.org/2017/bill-would-help-california-schoolsteach-about-fake-news-media-literacy/582363.
13
Gottfried, E. Shearer, News use across social media platforms 2017, Pew Research Center, 7 September 2017; www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/.
14
E. Bakshy et al., Science 348, 1130 (2015).
15
C. Crowell, Our approach to bots & misinformation, Twitter, 14 June 2017; https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2017/Our-Approach-Bots-Misinformation.html.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science
Volume 359 • Issue 6380 • 9 March 2018
Pages: 1094 - 1096
PubMed: 29590025
Copyright
Copyright © 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
RE: Fake News and how to Address It.
This article on fake news serves as a timely reminder on how its pervasiveness. But we can't change the problem, an information tragedy of the commons, by doing research on how to change the news ecosystem. Better factual data means little to the public anymore.
Scientists now need to learn to change the narrative of their science, become better storytellers, and not "so much a scientist" in the public eye. Randy Olson has written books on this topic and given TED talks on it.
I find using his approach actually makes a difference in changing how people view fake facts and to understand sound science. But storytelling in this way isn't part of STEM culture, although it is in humanities. STEM can learn from humanities in this case and a great deal.
Censoring news is dangerous. Censorship by algorithm is worse.
Lazer et al bemoan the fact that the Internet is awash with falsehoods and fabrications. With a nod to Snopes.com, they gloss over the genuinely difficult question, "how can we know what is true?" I am sure every reader of Science has caught Snopes in a misjudgment at some point. Do we really want Snopes or anyone to serve as our Ministry of Truth?
Remember that politicians have told us absurdities when it suits their purpose. The best newspapers are all too willing to credit these absurdities when to question them risks loss of access to the politicians.
Both the Vietnam War and the Iraq War were justified with disinformation promulgated by the U.S. government. The former was initiated with a fabricated incident in the Gulf of Tonken; the latter was justified with intelligence about "weapons of mass destruction" that the Downing Street Memo later revealed to be deliberately fallacious. These are certainly "fake news" but they would not have been tagged as such by either human or algorithmic censors, because the falsehoods were disseminated by a consensus of America's largest and most reliable media. On the contrary, the counterpoint to official lies appears commonly on smaller and more polemical web sites that are likely to be brushed aside as "fake news" when their fact base departs from the government line. The result is that censorship of those who dissent from the mainstream consensus makes it easier for the government to tell only what is convenient for their purposes.
Scientists, too, can be unreliable sources in the field where their credentials are best established. Do we trust a scientist in the employ of the fossil fuel industry or the pharmaceutical industry to manage public opinion unchallenged?
Authors of the article cite cases where obvious falsehoods are tweeted and repeated with higher frequency than mundane truths. But spread of obvious falsehoods tends to be self-limiting; the real problem is the plausible falsehood that is backed by corporate money or political power. It is a rare expert who will risk his position and his employment to challenge the lies that incite our nation to war, or even the lies that dismiss safety concerns about highly profitable products.
In this instance, the Founding Fathers had it exactly right. Control over the press is an awesome power, and no one is beyond corruption. Truth is too important to be left to the experts. As a free people, it is our privilege to be always mining for truth in a diverse and chaotic universe of ideas and opinions.
Josh Mitteldorf
Science information is not permanent but tentative
Fake news is not a recent problem. Archaeologists discovered that fake news existed 3000 years ago (2). The discovery shows that Pharaoh Ramses II was an expert in 'fake news' rather than a great warrior (2). Harold Szu commented that the science is brittle , evolves just like evolution: the survival, the fittest (3). Scientific information is not robust/permanent but fragile. In other words, science information might be temporarily fake. Once the lay public misinterpreted such science information, it may be hard to change their misinterpretations. It is extremely hard to classify fake news since today's fake news might become true in the future. Contrarily, today's true news might be false in the near future. All scientists must understand that scientific information is not permanent but tentative as of today.
References:
1. David M. J. Lazer et al., "The science of fake news," Science 09 Mar 2018: Vol. 359, Issue 6380, pp. 1094-1096
2. Ivan Petricevic, "Archaeologists Find 'Fake News' Existed Some 3,000 Years Ago Thanks To Ramses The Great,"
https://ancient-code.com/archaeologists-find-fake-news-existed-some-3000...
3. Harold Szu's comment through ResearchGate to "Science is not robust but fragile," Science (eLetter, 2 Nov. 2017)
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/427/tab-e-letters