The Psychology of Fake News (And What Tech Can Do About It)
summary
Fake news spreads six times faster than true stories, MIT's analysis claims, and deepfakes plus Adobe Project Voco can synthesize believable video and audio that create plausible deniability. A 1938 War of the Worlds panic myth collapses under data showing about 2% exposure then, highlighting how beliefs form from feeling not knowledge. Engineers deploy detection plus human review—Factcheck.me and Botcheck.me combine AI and people with mixed success—and designers consider adding friction to native ads.
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chapters (29)
- 0:00Start
- 0:42ORSON WELLES. WAR OF THE WORLDS. 1938
- 5:01ethics checkpoint
- 5:57WELCOME TO THE POST-TRUTH WORLD
- 6:33WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE FAKE NEWS?
- 6:48HOW WE EXPERIENCE KNOWLEDGE
- 6:58HOW BELIEFS ARE FORMED
- 7:11fast, automatic, intuitive (FAST)
- 7:43WE USE SLOW MIND (SYSTEM 2) TO FORM BELIEFS, OUR ACTIONS ON THOSE BELIEFS ARE INSTINCTUAL
- 8:45YELLOW JOURNALISM EST. 1890s
- 8:58SENSATIONALISTIC HEADLINES WORK BECAUSE THEY APPEAL TO OUR FEELINGS
- 9:22WHERE DO FEELINGS FIT WITH BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE?
- 9:44financial predators?
- 10:05WE CAN OFTEN CONFUSE FEELINGS FOR KNOWLEDGE
- 11:24KNOWLEDGE IS SHALLOW "BY DESIGN"
- 12:55FAKE NEWS SPREAD
- 14:45FAKE NEWS STORIES OUTPERFORM TRUE STORIES BY A FACTOR OF 6
- 18:14FAKE NEWS STORIES ELICITA STRONG EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
- 18:40CAN WE DISPROVE FAKE NEWS?
- 19:38TURNS OUT PEOPLE DON'T LIKE FEELING DUMB
- 21:20A GOOD LEADER MUST BE ABLE TO HELP PEOPLE REALIZE THEIR IGNORANCE WITHOUT MAKING THEM FEEL STUPID
- 21:33THIS IS WHERE TECH COMES IN!
- 22:29understand how code intersects with human behaviour privacy, safety, vulnerability, equality.
- 23:11TEACHING OTHERS ABOUT COMPUTER SAFETY
- 24:24DESIGN FOR A POST-TRUTH WORLD
- 30:24HOW MUCH OF FAKE NEWS IS BOTS?
- 30:3560% OF RECENT CONTROVERSIAL CONVERSATIONS ON SOCIAL WERE DRIVEN BY BOTS
- 30:49bots have hardly disappeared. They've just evolved. Now, rather than simply sending automated tweets that Twitter might relate they work to amplify and spread the divisive Tweets written by actual humane.
- 32:43DEVELOPING STORY
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