Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online
2024/11/28 by Killian Lorcan McLoughlin, William J. Brady, Aden Goolsbee +3 · 8 voices · 63 citations
Computer Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Computer security #Exploit #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Internet privacy #Misinformation #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Outrage #Political science #Psychology #Social Media and Politics #Trustworthiness
paper · doi:10.1126/science.adl2829
published in Science 386(6725), 991-996 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2024/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
We tested a hypothesis that misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, examining generalizability across multiple platforms, time periods, and classifications of misinformation. Outrage is highly engaging and need not be accurate to achieve its communicative goals, making it an attractive signal to embed in misinformation. In eight studies that used US data from Facebook (1,063,298 links) and Twitter (44,529 tweets, 24,007 users) and two behavioral experiments (1475 participants), we show that (i) misinformation sources evoke more outrage than do trustworthy sources; (ii) outrage facilitates the sharing of misinformation at least as strongly as sharing of trustworthy news; and (iii) users are more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without reading it first. Consequently, outrage-evoking misinformation may be difficult to mitigate with interventions that assume users want to share accurate information.
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Discussions
- doi.org/10.1126/scie... Great work from @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social et al now out in Science. [bsky, 6 points, 2 comments]
- Just finished reading this piece (doi.org/10.1126/scie...) by @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social @williambrady.bsky.social Aden Goolsbee, @benkaiserart.bsky.social @klonick.bsky.social @mjcrockett.bsky.so [bsky, 4 points, 2 comments]
- in Science: "Compared with trustworthy news sources, posts from #misinformation sources evoked more angry reactions and outrage than happy or sad sentiments. Users...motivated to reshare content that [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
- I can't help thinking there's a better paper in there waiting to get out (but I have no idea how you'd create the code for it). A combination of this paper and maybe the one below to see whether it's [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- ¿Por qué tienen más éxito los bulos que la información correcta? Porque los humanos somos esencialmente irracionales. Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online (2024) Science 386(6725), 991-9 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Lectura obligatoria para la comunicación que estoy preparando: El artículo examina como las publicaciones de fuentes de desinformación provocaron más reacciones de enojo e indignación que sentimiento [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- 😡 Anger fuels #misinformation online. A Science study shows false info targets anger, boosting shares. Other emotions? Not so much. Lesson: Don’t feed trolls. Control anger, limit their reach. 💡 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online doi.org/10.1126/scie... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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