An Empirical Study on False News on Internet-Based False News Stories: Experiences, Problem Awareness, and Responsibilities

Abstract

The Internet significantly reduced the marginal costs of generating and disseminating information. With false news stories in mind, scholars are increasingly interested in redesigning our information ecosystem because well-informed individuals are essential for a functioning democracy. This paper addresses the problem awareness of university students about false news stories. With the help of a questionnaire, we seek for interesting correlations to generate hypotheses that can be analyzed in further studies with new data (i.e. exploratory study). They read as follows: (i) Facebook users are more likely to be suspicious of false news stories if they are interested in political topics. People are less likely to detect false news stories the stronger they trust in others and the more emphasis they put on the opinions of others, (ii) False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not at the individual level, (iii) Men more often than women believe to be in touch with false news stories; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories. People who fear false news stories are likely to believe that they could detect such information better than the average, and (iv) People see operators of platforms to be in charge of false news stories; people seem to trust less in government.