The recent DANA crisis in Valencia has once again brought to the table a worrying reality: on social networks, false news spreads like wildfire and denials with data move at a snail’s pace. A new study led by Princeton University psychologist Killian McLoughlin and published in the journal Scienceexplains this phenomenon and demonstrates that the fuel that fuels hoaxes is moral outrage: social media posts that contain erroneous information provoke more anger than those that contain reliable information and this emotional response facilitates their spread.
For the study, the authors analyzed more than a million publications on Facebook and several thousand on the social network X (former Twitter), in addition to carrying out two behavioral experiments with 1,475 participants. “We show that 1) disinformation sources provoke more outrage than reliable sources, 2) outrage facilitates the sharing of disinformation at least as strongly as the sharing of reliable information; and 3) users are more willing to share misinformation that causes outrage without reading it first,” they write.
In other words, being angry and feeling the need to morally align with our group makes us let our guard down, and this is the weakness that agents who attempt to spread fake news take advantage of. Therefore, the authors conclude, “misinformation that provokes outrage may be difficult to mitigate with interventions that assume users want to share accurate information.”
Harnessing Basic Instincts
For the authors, outrage is defined as the mixture of anger and disgust triggered by perceived moral transgressions. “Most current efforts to combat the spread of misinformation online focus on facts,” McLoughlin tells elDiario.es. “Our results suggest that this assumption is not always true and is unlikely to curb the sharing of scandalous content. Indeed, sharing outrage is motivated by factors unrelated to truthfulness, such as demonstrating loyalty to a group or propagating moral positions. »
Sharing outrage is motivated by factors unrelated to truthfulness, such as demonstrating group loyalty or propagating moral positions.
Killian McLoughlin
— Princeton University psychologist and lead author
McLoughlin and his team also point out that the way social media platforms categorize the content presented to users is also likely to influence the spread of misinformation.
“Outrage-inducing misinformation is likely to spread further, in part because of the algorithmic amplification of engaging content,” they write. “This is important because algorithms can improve the ranking of news articles associated with outrage, even if a user intended to express outrage at the article because it contained information erroneous.”
Their results coincide with those of studies like the one published this week in the journal Human behavioraccording to which around 75% of posts on social networks are shared without users clicking on the link and that the most extreme content bounces much more than politically neutral content.
A dark motivation
“These results show that people don’t even stop to read scandalous news before sharing it,” explains Clara Pretus, an expert on disinformation at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), who n did not participate in the study. “Our motivation to share scandalous content is greater than our motivation to share truthful content. »
Our motivation to share scandalous content is greater than our motivation to share truthful content.
Clara Prétus
— Disinformation expert at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM)
For the specialist, the authors show that our reactions of indignation are a key aspect of the spread of disinformation, and this is important for the design of strategies against the spread of hoaxes. “A rationalist framework is imposed when designing strategies against disinformation,” he says. “This framework assumes that people are motivated to share truthful information, but while this is important, it is not enough and strategies against misinformation must take these other motivations into account. »
Luis Miller, doctor of sociology and senior researcher at CSIC, points out that the fact that many people share fake news to signal their membership in a group makes usual strategies to combat disinformation ineffective. “In other words, if one shares fake news without even reading it, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the news, providing more information (as in the case of fact check or community ratings) doesn’t seem to solve the problem,” he says. “If this is the case on a large scale, we will have to think about other formulas to combat disinformation. »
New strategies against lying
“It is true that we are fighting very insufficiently,” recognizes Pretus. One possible avenue for improvement, he points out, is to make changes to platform design that allow users to verify information faster and more massively than community ratings. “But we would have to force the platforms,” he says. “In many cases, perhaps most, we combat misinformation ‘poorly’ because we do so by providing more information,” Miller points out. “But if someone shares something not to publicize that information, but to signal their identity, more information serves almost no purpose.”
If someone shares something to signal their identity, more information is of virtually no use.
Luis Miller
— Doctor in sociology and principal researcher at CSIC
Since the game is played on the terrain of identity and emotions, and not on information and reasons, the strategy against fake news should perhaps rely on more effective reputation mechanisms, according to Miller. “That is to say, making someone ugly who has shared something false,” he explains. “I think community notes may work better by shaming the recipient (emotional punishment) rather than making them aware of the real information.”
A flood of hoaxes
Regarding the recent explosion of hoaxes surrounding the tragic episode of the DANA floods in Valencia on October 29, Miller believes that there were incentives to align yourself firmly with those on your side. “In addition, these are events where emotions predominate, through images and dramatic stories, and few people stop to verify the information before sharing it,” he emphasizes.
“I think what happened is that this can be seen as a moral transgression regardless of one’s point of view, because it attacks one of the fundamental pillars of morality, which is well-being people,” adds Pretus. “Therefore, it is likely to be used to generate outrage by highlighting a moral transgression of any ideological position. It is easy to use this case to generate disinformation.”
