Many social media users are more eager to share news online than check if it is true, a study has found.
Researchers found that Facebook and Twitter users were often too distracted to check if their posts were accurate.
David Rand, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said this was not because they were ‘immoral’ but more likely because of the environment in which we consume news on the platforms.
For the US study, more than 3,000 people were shown a series of true and false headlines about politics and the pandemic.
Participants were asked either how accurate the content was or whether they wanted to share it.
Researchers found that Facebook and Twitter users were often too distracted to check if their posts were accurate
At other times they were asked both questions.
The authors said the results allowed them to work out how posting content affected the ability of the person sharing it to decide whether it was true or not.
They found participants who were first asked about sharing the content before they were asked about its accuracy were 35 per cent worse at telling truths from falsehoods.
Too distracted to check accuracy
Professor Rand, co-author of the paper, said: ‘Just asking people whether they want to share things makes them more likely to believe headlines they wouldn’t otherwise have believed, and less likely to believe headlines they would have believed.’
However, he said this was because of a ‘generalised distraction’, which was indicative of how we consume news on social media, rather than attempts to deceive one another.
The academic, whose study was published in the journal Science Advances said: ‘I think there is, in some sense, a hopeful take on it, in that a lot of the message is that people aren’t immoral and purposely sharing bad things – and people aren’t totally hopeless.
‘But more it’s that the social media platforms have created an environment in which people are being distracted.’
Read Related Also: Rosaline Elbay Married, Net Worth, Family, Kaleidoscope
Hand data to bereaved or face prison
Social media bosses could face up to a year in prison if they fail to hand over data to bereaved parents under the Online Safety Bill.
The amendment is understood to have now got the backing of Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State responsible for the legislation.
Under the proposal, tech giants will be required to hand over all relevant content within ‘a timeframe that is fair to all parties’.
This would include content that the victim had viewed, the algorithms that might have driven harmful material to them, and how they engaged with it.
It was put forward to prevent families suffering the same trauma as the parents of Molly Russell, who were denied access to their daughter’s online accounts for nearly five years.
It was put forward to prevent families suffering the same trauma as the parents of Molly Russell (pictured), who were denied access to their daughter’s online accounts for nearly five years
The 14-year-old schoolgirl was bombarded by depression, self-harm and suicide content online in the months leading up to taking her own life in 2017.
On Sunday, the lawyer who helped the Russell family’s fight for access to the material wrote to Ms Donelan and Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, backing the campaign.
Merry Varney said the social media firms involved had provided only a ‘tiny fraction’ of the material requested despite being asked to do so by the coroner.
The amendment – which was drafted by Baroness Kidron, founder of charity 5Rights – is also backed by four former culture secretaries.
Under it, failure to provide or preserve the content ‘without reasonable excuse’ will be punished with fines of up to 10 per cent of the firms’ global turnover or a maximum one year’s jail sentence.
The Online Safety Bill now comes under the responsibility of the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
