People Consume Facebook Conspiracy Theories as Real News

Differentiating between real and fake stories on social media can be a challenge for the uninitiated, especially when conspiracy theories and lies can spread farther than news from traditional sources.

The World Economic Forum listed massive digital misinformation as one of the main risks for modern society because, even if the lifetime of false information is short and it is generally unlikely to result in severe real-world consequences, it is conceivable that a false rumor spreading virally through social networks might impact the public opinion before being effectively corrected.

In a recent study from Cornell University, 270,000 Facebook posts from 73 different Facebook pages were analyzed and showed just how easy conspiracy stories spread.