Detecting Fake News Takes Time

A few weeks ago, I took part in a free-wheeling annual gathering of social scientists from the academic and tech worlds. The psychologists and political scientists, data analysts and sociologists at Social Science Foo Camp, held in Menlo Park, Calif., were preoccupied with one problem in particular: With an election looming, what can we do about the spread of misinformation and fake news, especially on social media?

Fact-checking all the billions of stories on social media is obviously impractical. It may not be effective either. Earlier studies have shown an ”illusory truth” effect: Repeating a story, even if you say that it’s false, may actually make people more likely to remember it as true. Maybe, in our highly polarized world, they can’t even tell the difference; all that matters is whether the story supports your politics.

But new research contradicts this pessimistic picture. David Rand of MIT and Gordon Pennycook of the University of Regina have suggested that “cognitive laziness” may be a bigger problem than bias. It’s not that people can’t tell or don’t care whether a story is true; it’s just that they don’t put in the effort to find out

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The Wall Street Journal