How news producers can drive consumers toward misinformation - even when they want the truth
MIT researchers studied the relative success of 1,000 news articles from 40 outlets and integrated 20,000 accuracy ratings found that on known misinformation sites, more implausible stories generate higher engagement. Mainstream outlets show the opposite trend, with more plausible articles garnering more engagement.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MIT Sloan School of Management professor David Rand and three coauthors use game theory to show that news producer behavior — rather than consumer preferences — may explain why misinformation gets engagement online.
In the marketplace of ideas, the truth will win out — or so the old theory holds. But does that assumption hold true in an online marketplace where content producers can strategically promote misinformation?
The misinformation game
Until now, most research on responses to misinformation has been observational and consumer-focused, asking questions like who falls for fake news and why. Rand and his coauthors saw that this approach left out a fundamental piece of the equation — misinformation producers.
“A key feature of news consumption is that it is interactive,” Rand explained. “Consumers don't just make unilateral choices about what they consume, but instead, their choices depend on the content that producers produce. Game theory provides a formal language for understanding these kinds of multi-party interactions.” MORE