Fake news is «reinforced by false memories».

Pedro_P

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▼ A study into false memories highlights the risks of "fake news" spreading via social media.
Volunteers were shown fabricated news reports in the week before Ireland's 2018  abortion law referendum.
Nearly half of them subsequently claimed to have had prior memories of at least one of the made-up events detailed.
And many failed to question their false recollections even after being told the articles they had read might be fake.
The 3,140 participants had been more likely to have created false memories if the reports had lied about the side they had opposed, the study added.
The peer-reviewed worksupports prior research into the phenomenon. But its authors say it is the first time the problem has been tested in relation to a real-world referendum at the time it was being held.
One of academics told BBC News it highlighted how difficult it could be to "undo" spurious memories once they had been created.
"Memory is a reconstructive process and we are vulnerable to suggestion distorting our recollections, without our conscious awareness," Dr Gillian Murphy, of University College Cork, said.
"The implications for any upcoming elections are that voters are vulnerable to not just believing a fake news story but falsely recalling that the [made-up] event truly happened."
'Hard to correct'
Facebook used to display red warning flags alongside news stories third-party websites had judged to be fake news. But it ditched the strategy after saying it could entrench deeply held beliefs rather than calling them  into question.
Instead, it and other social networks now aim to limit the spread of fake stories, provide wider context and shut down state-backed propaganda accounts.
Even so, one UK-based fact-checking charity said more needed to be done. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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