A USC study of more than 2,400 Facebook users shows that platforms bear more responsibility than individual users for preventing the spread of misinformation online. USC researchers have uncovered the main driver of potentially fake news: the nature of social platforms that habitually encourage users to share information.

The team’s findings, which were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Challenge common misconceptions that the spread of misinformation results from a lack of critical thinking skills to distinguish right from wrong, or from bias in political beliefs.

Only 15% of the most common news distributors in the study are responsible for distributing about 30% to 40% of fake news.

A research team from the USC Marshall School of Business and Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences asked the question: What motivates these users? Apparently, like any video game, social media has a reward system that encourages users to stay on their account and keep posting. Users who frequently post and share particularly sensational, attention-grabbing information are more likely to get attention.

“Through reward-based learning systems on social networks, users develop habits of sharing information that is appreciated by others,” the researchers write. “Once habits are formed, knowledge sharing is automatically enabled via platform prompts, regardless of critical response consequences such as the spread of misinformation.”

So posting, sharing and interacting with others on social media can become a habit.

“Our results show that misinformation is not being spread because of a lack of users. It really depends on the nature of social media,” said Wendy Wood, a habit specialist and professor emeritus of psychology and business at USC.

“The habits of social media users are a greater driver than individual characteristics in the spread of misinformation. Gizem Ceylan, who led the research during her PhD at USC, said that previous research has shown that some people do not process information critically, while others form opinions based on political biases that also affect their ability to recognize false stories online. Marshall.

Using a new approach, Ceylan and her co-authors sought to understand how the reward structure of social networking sites motivates users to develop habits of posting misinformation on social networks.

Why is fake news spreading on social networks?

A total of 2,476 active Facebook users aged 18-89 participated in the study, who voluntarily responded to online advertisements to participate. They were rewarded for completing a “decision making” survey that took about seven minutes.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that the habits of social media users have doubled, and in some cases tripled, the amount of fake news they share. Their habits have had a greater impact on the spread of fake news than other factors such as political beliefs and a lack of critical thinking.

Regular users transmit six times more fake news than occasional or new users.

“In the past, such behavior was rewarded by algorithms that prioritized attention when users chose posts they would see in their news feeds, and by the structure and design of sites,” said co-author Ian A. Anderson. scientist. and a postdoctoral fellow at USC Dornsife. “Given the political, medical and social implications, it is important to understand the dynamics of the spread of misinformation.”

Try different scenarios to understand why fake news is spreading

In the first experiment, the researchers found that regular users of social networks shared both true and fake news. In another experiment, the researchers found that habitual sharing of false information is part of a broader pattern of insensitivity to the information being disseminated. In fact, casual users have shared politically controversial news – news that challenges their political beliefs and the good news they support.

Finally, the team tested whether social media reward systems could be designed to encourage the sharing of correct information rather than misinformation. They showed that incentives for accuracy rather than popularity (as is currently the case with social networking sites) double the amount of accurate news users share on social platforms.

Research results:

• The habitual exchange of misinformation is not inevitable.
• Users can be encouraged to develop sharing habits that make them more responsive to sharing the right content.
• Effectively reducing misinformation will require restructuring the online environment that fosters and supports its spread.

These findings suggest that social media platforms can take more proactive steps than moderating posted information and instead make structural changes to reward structures to limit the spread of misinformation.