Abstract: Despite their potential attractiveness, fake news is shared by a very small minority of internet users. As past research suggests a good reputation is more easily lost than gained, we hypothesized that the majority of people and media sources avoid sharing fake news stories so as to maintain a good reputation. In two pre-registered experiments (N = 3264) we found that the increase in trust that a source (media outlet or individual) enjoys when sharing one real news against a background of fake news is smaller than the drop in trust a source suffers when sharing one fake news against a background of real news. This asymmetry holds even when the outlet only shares politically congruent news. We suggest that individuals and media outlets avoid sharing fake news because it would hurt their reputation, reducing the social or economic benefits associated with being seen as a good source of information.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Why Do so Few People Share Fake News? It Hurts Their Reputation
Altay, Sacha, Anne-Sophie Hacquin, and Hugo Mercier. 2019. “Why Do so Few People Share Fake News? It Hurts Their Reputation.” PsyArXiv. October 1. doi:10.31234/osf.io/82r6q
Abstract: Despite their potential attractiveness, fake news is shared by a very small minority of internet users. As past research suggests a good reputation is more easily lost than gained, we hypothesized that the majority of people and media sources avoid sharing fake news stories so as to maintain a good reputation. In two pre-registered experiments (N = 3264) we found that the increase in trust that a source (media outlet or individual) enjoys when sharing one real news against a background of fake news is smaller than the drop in trust a source suffers when sharing one fake news against a background of real news. This asymmetry holds even when the outlet only shares politically congruent news. We suggest that individuals and media outlets avoid sharing fake news because it would hurt their reputation, reducing the social or economic benefits associated with being seen as a good source of information.
Abstract: Despite their potential attractiveness, fake news is shared by a very small minority of internet users. As past research suggests a good reputation is more easily lost than gained, we hypothesized that the majority of people and media sources avoid sharing fake news stories so as to maintain a good reputation. In two pre-registered experiments (N = 3264) we found that the increase in trust that a source (media outlet or individual) enjoys when sharing one real news against a background of fake news is smaller than the drop in trust a source suffers when sharing one fake news against a background of real news. This asymmetry holds even when the outlet only shares politically congruent news. We suggest that individuals and media outlets avoid sharing fake news because it would hurt their reputation, reducing the social or economic benefits associated with being seen as a good source of information.
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