Summary
Fake news has gained a lot of attention from the 2016 presidential election and emphasis on combating it has increased since then. People have become more critical on the authenticity of publicly shared news articles that grab a large amount of attention. However, it seems as if fake news is still everywhere. There are currently many websites that check whether news articles are real or fake, but the accuracy could be better. This study was intended to help fact-checkers detect fake news early on. The main problem this study addressed was if there was any systematic stylistic and other content differences between fake and real news. The main conclusions that were:
- The content of fake and real news articles are substantially different.
- Titles are a strong differentiating factor between fake and real news
- Fake content is more closely related to satire than to real.
- Real news persuades though arguments, while fake news persuades through heuristics.
Reflection
Their logic of real news coming from only real news sources and fake news coming from only fake news sources is flawed. There could have been some articles in which the opposite was true. This could have flawed their research if there was a good amount cases such as this.
The sharing of information conforms to ones beliefs:
This concept makes sense and I’ve noticed it happening around me. I remember one person I know, who I follow on social media, shared an article that aligned with her views but not with mine. It was about an attack on some politician. When I opened up the article, the arguments did not appear to be valid and there wasn’t much hard evidence. I didn’t think she read it carefully. In psychology there’s a term called confirmation bias that states that people are more likely to seek information parallel with their beliefs and they are also more likely to remember that information. This ties to the notion of an echo-chamber and how fake news persuades through heuristics. Another interesting study would be how much of a news article, real or fake, do people read before they share it. This could be done by tracking how long people are on the link. This could only be an estimation and doesn’t account for different speeds of reading, idle users, multitasking while reading, and other factors.
This concept makes sense and I’ve noticed it happening around me. I remember one person I know, who I follow on social media, shared an article that aligned with her views but not with mine. It was about an attack on some politician. When I opened up the article, the arguments did not appear to be valid and there wasn’t much hard evidence. I didn’t think she read it carefully. In psychology there’s a term called confirmation bias that states that people are more likely to seek information parallel with their beliefs and they are also more likely to remember that information. This ties to the notion of an echo-chamber and how fake news persuades through heuristics. Another interesting study would be how much of a news article, real or fake, do people read before they share it. This could be done by tracking how long people are on the link. This could only be an estimation and doesn’t account for different speeds of reading, idle users, multitasking while reading, and other factors.
Titles are a strong differentiating factor between fake and real news:
The example given in the paper is an obvious example of fake vs real news titles. Since not every fake news article will have the same clear signs, another example should have been given with less indicators in order to highlight the subtle differences between the two.
Fake content is more closely related to satire than to real:
The point of satire is to bring across a point using humor, irony, and exaggeration. So satire should be more related to fake content. Satirical news sources are very popular and do highlight key points. I follow some of them on social media and sometimes wonder if it’s apparent to everyone that these articles are satire. I say this because I’ve seen several comments from people who take the news literally and do not differentiate fact from satire. They then come forward with negative criticism. Some people would think that’s funny and reply with a sarcastic remark to get a reaction from that person.
Since this paper and future work on this topic will be public,one obstacle could be the use of this research by people with malicious intent. If they do create fake news and change their style a little based on this research, it could be harder for fact-checkers to detect fake articles, lowering their accuracy. More in-depth methods would need to be applied in order combat this issue.
