How scientific misinformation spreads through social media

Researchers say polarized clusters, or ‘echo chambers,’ on Facebook and Twitter help propagate and reinforce attitudes such as doubt about climate change

“Individuals want to maintain their self-identity . . . They’re not going to read something that challenges their values . . . their belief system.”

ROBERT BRULLE SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR

Social media is no doubt a powerful force when it comes to the sharing of information and ideas. The problem is that not every article shared on Facebook or Twitter is true. Misinformation, conspiracy theories and rumours abound on the Internet, helping to propagate and support sentiments such as climate doubt and other forms of environmental and scientific skepticism.

Figuring out how such ideas diffuse through social media may be key to scientists and science communi- cators alike as they look for ways to better reach the public and change the minds of those who reject their information. A study just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds new light on the factors that influence the spread of misinformation online.

The researchers conclude that the diffusion of content generally takes place within clusters of users known as “echo chambers” — polarized communities that tend to consume the same types of information. For instance, a person who shares a conspiracy theory online is typically connected to a network of other users who also tend to consume and share the same types of conspiracy theories. This structure tends to keep the same ideas circulating within communities of people who already subscribe to them, a phenomenon that both reinforces the world view within the community and makes members more resistant to information that doesn’t fit with their beliefs.

The researchers conducted their study by looking at the diffusion of content on Facebook, examining the spread of both conspiracy theories and “alternative, contro-

versialing evidence” information,(for example, the idea thatoften lacking support-vaccines can cause autism), and scientific news. They found that highly segregated communities, or echo chambers, existed around each type of content, and then content tends to circulate only within its own community.

“I would say that in the spreading of misinformation, online confirmation bias is the driver,” said the study’s senior author, Walter Quattrociocchi of the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy. Confirmation bias is the tendency of individuals to pay attention to or believe information that confirms the personal values and

beliefs they already hold, rather than allowing their beliefs to be changed by new information.

It’s a powerful force that many researchers have suggested plays a key role in the persistence of phenomena such as climate doubt. With an overwhelming abundance of evidence pointing to climate change caused by human behaviour, for instance, many scientists have questioned why skepticism continues to be pervasive in society. The answer could be that confirmation bias leads people to seek out evidence — however small or poorly supported — that supports their existing beliefs.

The new study is among the first to make a case for this type of behaviour when it comes to the spreading of scientific information or misinformation online, Quattrociocchi said.

“Until now, we have from one side the psychological or social studies that are working mainly with speculation and few experiments,” he said. “(Now) we have specific evidence of confirmation bias in the sense that once you choose a narrative, the selection criteria is basically confirmation: ‘I will choose evidence that coexists with things that I already believe are true.’ ”

These results are in line with the findings in studies of other platforms, such as news media. A 2014 paper in the Journal of Com- munication, for instance, found that the echo chamber effect exists within partisan news outlets when it comes to climate change.

So the findings in this paper, while new on the social media front, are by no means surprising. The question is how this information can be useful to scientists or communicators hoping to better reach members of the public who disagree with their views.

“They really need to take this kind of bifurcation of their audiences seriously,” said Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “Continued preaching to the choir is not going to work.”

Brulle, who has conducted research on the funding behind the climate change contrarian movement, suggests that climate scientists consider how they might break into large audiences rather than attempt to convert individuals one by one by showering them with evidence.

However, it’s a question without a simple solution, one that poses “a real challenge to climate communication,” he said. “Individuals want to maintain their self-identity and self-image. They’re not going to read something that challenges their values, their self-worth, their identity, their belief system.”