Why do we Fall for Fake News?

There's good journalism, bad journalism, and then yellow journalism. Yellow journalists take news out of context and will exaggerate or twist the story how they see fit. In other words, it's fake news. These articles pop up on social media, with their clickbait titles and aggressive punctuation, enticing the user to take a look. It seems like like such a counterproductive thing to do, to spread false information. So why do it? What does someone gain from it?

Each click has a price tag stuck to it. For some, creating articles is an easy way to make money. Is it understandable? Perhaps. Is it right? Not really, especially since there are many people that do buy into these twisted news articles. Another motivation could be that the writer just wants to make get their point across, they want others to think like them and gather support for their stance. Either way, nothing good comes out of spreading misinformation. In fact, yellow journalism did have an influence in prompting the Spanish-American War. Not saying that a silly clickbait article will send the U.S into another war, but it sure can cause unrest among people if bad enough. 

These articles spread easily through social media. One will only read the title for a few seconds before thinking to themself, "Wait, what?! No way!-" and then click the share or retweet button. I have fallen victim to this too. I saw an article claiming Queen Elizabeth said that she could kill Donald Trump without consequence if she wanted to. While I don't condone murder, I thought it was funny, thinking to myself, "Well, that's good ole Lizzie throwin' around some cheeky banter," only to realize it was satire. To be fair, satire isn't trying to present itself as real news, but I still fell for it anyways and hit the retweet button.

Which brings this to the main point, why do people fall for it? I'm no scientist, but as a psych major, I do know a thing or two about the human mind and these journalists just might too. Humans are not perfect and whether the writers realize it or not, yellow journalism exploits a few human flaws. There are three deadly ingredients that tempt people to eat up these fake articles: implicit bias, belief perseverance, and confirmation bias. 

Implicit bias is an unconscious sort of bias. These develop throughout personal experience and being exposed to (or not exposed to) certain stereotypes. They don't have to align with one's actual beliefs. For example, say someone identifies as a liberal and happens to find a fake article bashing conservatives. While he doesn't think conservatives are bad people, he might be inclined to believe this article because of his implicit bias towards them. Belief perseverance is the idea of holding on to a belief despite there being contradictory evidence. A good example of this is Trump's claim of mass voter fraud. This then ties with the last and possible most deadly ingredient, confirmation bias. One's mind is made up and they only search the things that confirm their belief. So if a fake news article states something they already believed to be true, then it's not fake, it's real (see pragmatic theory of truth for some food for thought). This is why people fall for these articles, this is why these articles get popular. It's much easier to be reinforced than being challenged, but of course there are ways to combat it.

Here's an article on how to detect fake news. 

It's also helpful to keep an open mind and diversify where you get your news from. Unfortunately, for some people, once their mind is made up, it's made up. That's the most frustrating part. Be aware and be careful of what you read on the internet. 

— Stay Hydrated, Ace