Today’s Brainlift is all about fake news, and some of the psychology behind how it gets into your head. But before I dive into it, here’s a quick note to regular subscribers: You may have noticed a different look for The Brainlift this week. I’ve switched from using my normal mailing list service to a service called Substack. I hope you enjoy this simpler and more personal format!
Ok, let’s talk about fake news
The amazing thing about news and politics is that everybody seems to think they have the right answers. People believe that the media publications they read themselves are the most reliable, and that everyone else is falling for biased propaganda. But what’s the truth here?
I recently published this article on a new study showing that people are more likely to be duped by fake news when the content is consistent with their personal political biases. In 2018, researchers in Ireland gave people news stories about a national referendum on abortion, and asked them if they could remember coming across those news stories. However, some of the news stories were entirely made up by the researchers: they never actually happened.
Bizarrely, many people were reporting memories related to fake news stories that they had never seen before. They were more likely to say they remembered a story if it was a scandal about the opposing political team. Pro-abortion voters were more likely to fall for a fake news story suggesting that anti-abortion voters had broken the law, and anti-abortion voters were more likely to fall for a story suggesting that pro-abortion voters had broken the law.
In other words, people believe what they want to believe. And their brains are willing to concoct completely false memories to support their illusions.
What can we do about it?
Here are three strategies that may prevent your biases from leading you too far astray:
Broaden the sources of information that you consume. Rather than tightening the bubble around your own political camp, see whether there are reasonable perspectives in other bubbles that you could pay more attention to.
Be skeptical about political spin in news stories, especially when you agree with it! Even our favorite journalists have political biases and personal interests, and they may not represent a problem fairly.
Be wary of how your social media channels may be making your information bubbles worse. Online tech is great at recommending content we typically enjoy based on our past interactions with the platform, but it can prevent us from seeing different content that may be eye-opening. Personal growth comes from learning about new perspectives, so we should maintain some contact outside our comfort zone.
Propaganda in history
Historical propaganda posters weren’t always lies or fake news, but they were designed to bias a person’s mind toward one particular decision. Like most types of advertising, images in propaganda typically present a one-sided story in order to convince viewers to sign up to a specific agenda. Here are a couple of examples—one from WW1 and another from WW2—that aimed to recruit people into the army by appealing to their sense of pride and fear.
That final quote
Final words go to the American journalist and broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, who became known for his radio broadcasts during WW2:
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
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