Pröllochs, N., Bär, D. & Feuerriegel, S.
Sci Rep 11, 22721 (2021).
Abstract
False rumors (often termed “fake news”) on social media pose a signifcant threat to modern societies. However, potential reasons for the widespread difusion of false rumors have been underexplored. In this work, we analyze whether sentiment words, as well as diferent emotional words, in social media content explain diferences in the spread of true vs. false rumors. For this purpose, we collected N = 126,301 rumor cascades from Twitter, comprising more than 4.5 million retweets that have been fact-checked for veracity. We then categorized the language in social media content to (1) sentiment (i.e., positive vs. negative) and (2) eight basic emotions (i. e., anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, trust, sadness, and surprise). We find that sentiment and basic emotions explain differences in the structural properties of true vs. false rumor cascades. False rumors (as compared to true rumors) are more likely to go viral if they convey a higher proportion of terms associated with a positive sentiment. Further, false rumors are viral when embedding emotional words classifed as trust, anticipation, or anger. All else being equal, false rumors conveying one standard deviation more positive sentiment have a 37.58% longer lifetime and reach 61.44% more users. Our fndings ofer insights into how true vs. false rumors spread and highlight the importance of managing emotions in social media content.
Here are some thoughts:
This research analyzes how language used in social media posts influences the spread of rumors, specifically true vs. false ones. The study focuses on sentiment (positive vs. negative) and basic emotions (anger, anticipation, trust) in online content. They found that positive language and emotions like anger, anticipation, and trust are linked to a wider spread of false rumors. This is because emotions are known to influence how online content is shared.
Final thought: When we encounter a rumor that evokes emotions like anger, anticipation, or trust, it is more likely to stand out to us. This increased salience makes us more likely to share the rumor, even if it is false.
