{"id":230770,"date":"2020-04-27T15:29:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T15:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qa.sites.abudhabi.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/?p=230770"},"modified":"2021-02-08T15:31:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T15:31:52","slug":"researchers-find-that-red-flagging-misinformation-could-slow-the-spread-of-fake-news-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/?p=230770","title":{"rendered":"Researchers find that red-flagging misinformation could slow the spread of fake news on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A team led by researchers at NYU Tandon discover that credibility indicators flagging spurious headlines can reduce intention to share non-true news, though demographics and political affiliation influence their effectiveness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 \u2013 The dissemination of fake news on social media is a pernicious trend with dire implications for the 2020 presidential election. Indeed,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oii.ox.ac.uk\/news\/releases\/junk-news-not-prevalent-on-twitter-but-more-likely-to-be-shared-and-liked-on-facebook-finds-unique-multilingual-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research<\/a>&nbsp;shows that public engagement with spurious news is greater than with legitimate news from mainstream sources, making social media a powerful channel for propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A new study on the spread of disinformation reveals that pairing headlines with credibility alerts from fact-checkers, the public, news media and even AI, can reduce peoples\u2019 intention to share. However, the effectiveness of these alerts varies with political orientation and gender. The good news for truth seekers? Official fact-checking sources are overwhelmingly trusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The study, led by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.nyu.edu\/faculty\/nasir-memon\">Nasir Memon<\/a>, professor of computer science and engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.nyu.edu\/faculty\/sameer-patil\">Sameer Patil<\/a>, visiting research professor at NYU Tandon and assistant professor in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington, goes further, examining the effectiveness of a specific set of inaccuracy notifications designed to alert readers to news headlines that are inaccurate or untrue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The work, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1145\/3313831.3376213\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Effects of Credibility Indicators on Social Media News Sharing Intent<\/a>,\u201d published in the Proceedings of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/chi2020.acm.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2020 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems<\/a>, involved an online study of around 1,500 individuals to measure the effectiveness among different groups of four so-called \u201ccredibility indicators\u201d displayed beneath headlines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Fact Checkers<\/strong>: \u201cMultiple fact-checking journalists dispute the credibility of this news\u201d<\/li><li><strong>News Media<\/strong>: \u201cMajor news outlets dispute the credibility of this news\u201d<\/li><li><strong>Public<\/strong>: \u201cA majority of Americans disputes the credibility of this news\u201d<\/li><li><strong>AI<\/strong>: \u201cComputer algorithms using AI dispute the credibility of this news\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe wanted to discover whether social media users were less apt to share fake news when it was accompanied by one of these indicators and whether different types of credibility indicators exhibit different levels of influence on people\u2019s sharing intent,\u201d says Memon. \u201cBut we also wanted to measure the extent to which demographic and contextual factors like age, gender, and political affiliation impact the effectiveness of these indicators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Participants \u2014 over 1,500 U.S. residents&nbsp; \u2014 saw a sequence of 12 true, false, or satirical news headlines. Only the false or satirical headlines included a credibility indicator below the headline in red font. For all of the headlines, respondents were asked if they would share the corresponding article with friends on social media, and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUpon initial inspection, we found that political ideology and affiliation were highly correlated to responses and that the strength of individuals\u2019 political alignments made no difference, whether Republican or Democrat,\u201d says Memon. \u201cThe indicators impacted everyone regardless of political orientation, but the impact on Democrats was much larger compared to the other two groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most effective of the credibility indicators, by far, was&nbsp;<strong>Fact Checkers<\/strong>: Study respondents intended to share 43% fewer non-true headlines with this indicator versus 25%, 22%, and 22% for the \u201cNews Media,\u201d \u201cPublic,\u201d and \u201cAI\u201d indicators, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Effects of Political Affiliation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The team found a strong correlation between<strong>&nbsp;political affiliation&nbsp;<\/strong>and the propensity of each of the credibility indicators to influence intention to share. In fact, the AI credibility indicator actually induced Republicans to&nbsp;<strong>increase&nbsp;<\/strong>their intention to share non-true news:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Democrats<\/strong>&nbsp;intended to share 61% fewer non-true headlines with the Fact Checkers indicator (versus 40% for&nbsp;<strong>Independents<\/strong>&nbsp;and 19% for&nbsp;<strong>Republicans<\/strong>)<\/li><li><strong>Democrats<\/strong>&nbsp;intended to share 36% fewer non-true headlines with the News Media indicator (versus 29% for&nbsp;<strong>Independents<\/strong>&nbsp;and 4.5% for&nbsp;<strong>Republicans<\/strong>)<\/li><li><strong>Democrats<\/strong>&nbsp;intended to share 37% fewer non-true headlines with the Public indicator, (versus 17% for&nbsp;<strong>Independents<\/strong>&nbsp;and 6.7% for&nbsp;<strong>Republicans<\/strong>)<\/li><li><strong>Democrats<\/strong>&nbsp;intended to share 40% fewer non-true headlines with the AI indicator (versus 16% for&nbsp;<strong>Independents<\/strong>)<\/li><li><strong>Republicans<\/strong>&nbsp;intended to share 8.1% more non-true news with the AI indicator<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/engineering.nyu.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/wysiwyg-images\/Politics%20affect%20influence%20of%20credibility%20indicators%20copy_0.jpeg\" alt=\"bar graph (see caption for details)\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Republicans are less likely to be influenced by credibility indicators, more inclined to share fake news on social media.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Patil says that while fact-checkers are the most effective kind of indicator, regardless of political affiliation and gender, fact-checking is a very labor-intensive. He says the team was surprised by the fact that Republicans were more inclined to share news that was flagged as not credible using the AI indicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe were not expecting that, although conservatives may tend to trust more traditional means of flagging the veracity of news,\u201d he says, adding that the team will next examine how to make the most effective credibility indicator \u2014 fact-checkers \u2014 efficient enough to handle the scale inherent in today\u2019s news climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis could include applying fact checks to only the most-needed content, which might involve applying natural language algorithms. So, it is a question, broadly speaking, of how humans and AI could co-exist,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The team also found that males intended to share non-true headlines one and half times more than females, with the differences largest for the Public and News Media indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/engineering.nyu.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/wysiwyg-images\/Gender%20affect%20influence%20of%20credibility%20indicators.jpeg\" alt=\"bar graph showing how men are more likely to share fake news. \"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Men are&nbsp;less likely to be influenced by credibility indicators, more inclined to share fake news on social media.<\/em>&nbsp;<em>But indicators, especially those from fact-checkers, reduce intention to share fake news across the board.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Socializing was the dominant reason respondents gave for intending to share a headline, with the top-reported reason for intending to share fake stories being that they were considered funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEffects of Credibility Indicators on Social Media News Sharing Intent\u201d is available at:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1145\/3313831.3376213\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ACM Digital Library<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country\u2019s foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/engineering.nyu.edu\/\">engineering.nyu.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team led by researchers at NYU Tandon discover that credibility indicators flagging spurious headlines can reduce intention to share non-true news, though demographics and political affiliation influence their effectiveness BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 \u2013 The dissemination of fake news on social media is a pernicious trend with dire implications for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230772,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230770\/revisions\/230772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/230771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nyuad.nyu.edu\/ccs-ad\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}