The Psychology of Fake News (And What Tech Can Do About It)

Fake news is not a tech problem, it’s a human problem. To build the tools necessary to combat fake news, technologists must think differently. We must understand the psychology behind fake news to arrive at a solution that is human-centric and attainable.

Transcript

1. PSYCHOLOGY OF FAKE NEWS [CECY CORREA // PEERS CONF 2018] AND WHAT TECH CAN DO ABOUT IT
3. STILL THE FUTURE...
4. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE PRESENT
5. HOW DID WE GET HERE?
6. RESEARCHING FAKE NEWS SINCE 2016
7. ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT IS
8. THE BUBBLE AND ECHO CHAMBER POWERED BY SOCIAL MEDIA
9. SELECTIVE FEEDS SHOW US ONLY WHAT WE WANT TO SEE
10. BLOCK OR HIDE ANYTHING WE DON’T WANT TO SEE
11. LINK PREVIEWS SO WE DON’T HAVE TO READ A FULL ARTICLE
12. CLICKBAIT TO GET PEOPLE TO CLICK ON YOUR ARTICLE
13. COVERAGE IS NOW BASED ON WHAT WILL GET CLICKS
14. HOW 2 ESTABLISHED OUTLETS COVER THE SAME STORY SOURCE: @JUDDLEGUM
15. FAKE NEWS SITES COVERING THE SAME ‘STORY’ SOURCE: BUZZFEED
16. IS THIS A NEW PHENOMENON?
17. YELLOW JOURNALISM EST. 1890s
18. IT EXISTS BECAUSE IT WORKS
19. THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND FAKE NEWS
20. SYSTEM 1 & SYSTEM 2 THINKING THINKING FAST AND SLOW, DANIEL KAHNEMAN
21. SYSTEM 1 fast, automatic, intuitive
22. SYSTEM 2 Analytical
23. beliefs == system 1
24. why do we believe what we believe?
25. KNOWLEDGE
26. EXERCISE: DRAW A BIKE
27. KNOWLEDGE IS SHALLOW “BY DESIGN”
28. OUR BRAINS COULD NOT FUNCTION IF WE WERE AWARE OF HOW MUCH WE DON’T KNOW
29. THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION “...strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding... but it deepens as more people believe this together”
30. BELIEVING TOGETHER
31. THE INFORMATION DIET INFORMATION DIET
32. INFORMATION YOU AGREE WITH IS STIMULATING (yummy)
33. INFORMATION YOU DISAGREE WITH IS NOT STIMULATING (yucky)
34. INFORMATION THAT CONFORMS TO OUR BELIEFS IS EASIER TO DIGEST THAN INFORMATION THAT REQUIRES OUR ANALYTICAL MIND
36. AND THAT’S THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAKE NEWS
37. IS IT TECH’S FAULT?
38. [record scratch]
41. I KNOW HOW I SOUND...
42. “A Facebook ‘like’, he said, was their most ‘potent weapon’. ‘Because using artificial intelligence, as we did, tells you all sorts of things about that individual and how to convince them with what sort of advert. And you knew there would also be other people in their network who liked what they liked, so you could spread.’”
43. SPREAD
44. FAKE NEWS SPREAD SOURCE: THE ATLANTIC
45. “It seems to be pretty clear that false information outperforms true information,” said Soroush Vosoughi, a data scientist at MIT who has studied fake news since 2013 and who led this study. “And that is not just because of bots. It might have something to do with human nature.”
46. TWO STORIES
47. A TALE OF TWO STORIES THEN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL DONALD TRUMP FLIES CRITICALLY ILL CHILD ANDREW TEN FROM CALIFORNIA TO NEW YORK IN HIS PRIVATE JET FOR TREATMENT OBITUARY FROM DONALD TRUMP’S DECEASED COUSIN IMPLORES THE PUBLIC NOT TO VOTE FOR THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.
48. A TALE OF TWO STORIES THEN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL DONALD TRUMP FLIES CRITICALLY ILL CHILD ANDREW TEN FROM CALIFORNIA TO NEW YORK IN HIS PRIVATE JET FOR TREATMENT ✅ OBITUARY FROM DONALD TRUMP’S DECEASED COUSIN IMPLORES THE PUBLIC NOT TO VOTE FOR THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. ❌
49. FAKE NEWS STORIES OUTPERFORM TRUE STORIES BY ABOUT 6X
50. FAKE NEWS STORIES ILLICIT AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
51. ...so is it tech’s fault?
52. NOT REALLY SORT OF YES!
53. WE DON’T TAKE THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND PSYCHOLOGY
54. WE DON’T TAKE THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND ETHICS
55. WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
56. WE NEED TO PRIORITIZE TOOLS TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION
57. SOURCE: VANITY FAIR
58. WE HAVE TO TAKE OWNERSHIP OF OUR PRODUCT DECISIONS
59. SUPPORT MORE ‘ZEBRA’ COMPANIES
60. SOURCE: QUARTZ
61. COMPANIES THAT BALANCE PROFIT & PURPOSE
62. COMPANIES THAT SOLVE ACTUAL PROBLEMS
64. NEED TO PRIORITIZE TECH LITERACY [outside our own spheres too]
65. THINK OF BETTER WAYS TO MONETIZE THAN DATA SHARING
66. NEED EMPATHY