Abstract
Fake news is increasingly an issue on social media platforms. In this work, rather than detect misinformation, we propose the use of nudges to help steer internet users into fact checking the news they read online. We discuss two types of nudging strategies, by presentation and by information. We present the tool BalancedView, a proof-of-concept that shows news stories relevant to a tweet. The method presents the user with a selection of articles from a range of reputable news sources providing alternative opinions from the whole political spectrum, with these alternative articles identified as matching the original one by a combination of natural language processing and search. The results of an initial user study of BalancedView suggest that nudging by information may change the behavior of users towards that of informed news readers.
Highlights
Information disorder in current information ecosystems arises from the publication of “fake news,” and from individuals’ subjective reading of news and from their propagating news to others.Sometimes the difference between real and fake information is apparent
The perception of the trustworthiness of news is often influenced by confirmation bias
We propose BalancedView, a novel, low-cost, and scalable method for fighting the spread of misinformation without having to rely on users reporting or third parties checking news items
Summary
Information disorder in current information ecosystems arises from the publication of “fake news,” and from individuals’ subjective reading of news and from their propagating news to others.Sometimes the difference between real and fake information is apparent. We discuss how social networks increase the spread of biased news and misinformation. Echo chambers and other factors that may subconsciously influence a person’s opinion. We show how these processes can interact to form a vicious circle that favors the rise of untrustworthy sources. Often, when an individual thinks they know something, they are satisfied by an explanation that confirms their belief, without necessarily considering all possible other explanations, and regardless of the veracity of this information. This is confirmation bias in action. Nickerson (1998) defined it as the tendency of people to both seek and interpret evidence that supports an already-held belief
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