Why Fake News Fools Smart People

Fake news. Once upon a time, the phrase “fake news” wasn’t part of our daily vocabulary. But thanks to social media algorithms, clickbait headlines, and the occasional conspiracy-loving uncle, it’s now a household term.

You ever find yourself reading a headline that sounds just true enough to be believable—even if it’s a little wild? Like “Avocados Cure Anxiety” or “Aliens Found in IKEA Warehouse”?

Before you judge, know this: It’s not about intelligence. It’s about how the human brain works. And it’s being hacked by fake news, every single day.

A 2018 study in Science shows that fake news - whether it be unintentional misinformation or malicious propaganda - actually spreads more quickly than true news. Their findings included:

• False news stories were 70% more likely to be re-tweeted than true stories.

• It took true stories around six times longer to reach 1,500 people.

Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and a few other dead white guys didn't need social media to know that fake news travels fast: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

In every cognitive process, there are instantaneous and subconscious processes also at work. The exact nature of the subconscious mind on cognitive function is greatly debated, however, numerous studies show that the unconscious mind gathers and processes information much faster than the conscious brain… and often times it tricks us into believing things are true when they are not.

Cognitive Bias: The Invisible Force Behind Misinformation

Even the most rational minds are vulnerable to cognitive biases—those sneaky shortcuts your brain takes to make sense of the world. One of the most powerful players? The illusory truth effect.

First documented in 1977 by Lynn Hasher at the University of Toronto, the illusory truth effect, also known as the reiteration effect, occurs when repeated exposure to information, even if false, makes it seem more true or believable. Whether it’s “ice cream makes you smarter” or “vaccines cause autism," when we hear something over and over again, our brain starts to say, “Yeah, I keep hearing that. It must be true.”

It’s not logic. It’s familiarity. And the brain loves familiar.

Hasher’s research revealed that we evaluate information based on:

How well it fits what we already believe.

How familiar it feels.

Fake news and political propaganda are rooted in the illusory effect. This is exactly why political propaganda and fake news thrive in echo chambers. Repetition = recognition. Recognition = perceived truth. And boom—false narratives start to feel legit.

Now let’s layer in another brain quirk: the availability heuristic. This is our brain’s tendency to judge the probability of something based on how easily we can recall examples of it.

Let's imagine you’ve seen five news stories about shark attacks this week. Even if they’re all from Florida in 2007, you’ll overestimate how likely you are to be eaten next time you hit the beach. The more vivid or frequent the information, the more likely your brain thinks it is.

Our own moods also leave us vulnerable. And adding a single moral-emotional word to social media posts about controversial topics increase their shareability by up to 20%. A single word! All the while, people overlook or forget the source of news and whether that outlet is reliable.

Fake news takes full advantage of this. By flooding your feed with emotionally charged, dramatic stories—real or not—it makes those events feel common, likely, and urgent. That’s not just misinformation. That’s manipulation.

Repetition Builds Belief… and False Memories

In a study conducted at Central Washington University by psychologist Danielle Polage, researchers found that subjects who read fake news stories—even just once—were more likely to believe them as true five weeks later. Even when participants knew they had read the story during the experiment, they misremembered it as something they’d seen “out in the wild”—on TV, a trusted website, or maybe a friend’s feed. This false familiarity supercharged their belief in the story’s credibility.

It’s not just that we believe the lie—we forget where we heard it, and start trusting it more because we think it came from a reliable source.

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The universe of “fake news” is much more than crazy Facebook stories. Some stories may have a nugget of truth, but lack details, verifiable facts or sources. Some stories may include basic verifiable facts, but use language that is deliberately inflammatory, leaves out pertinent details or only presents one viewpoint. "Fake news" exists within a larger ecosystem of mis- and disinformation.

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is mistakenly created or spread. Disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and spread "in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth"

(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinformation).

Claire Wardle of First Draft News has created the helpful visual image below to help us think about the ecosystem of mis- and disinformation. And as she points out, "it's complicated."

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Most of us like to think we could easily discern fake news headlines from the real thing. But it turns out, we might not be as skilled at it as we think. Here’s the kicker: Your brain is doing its best. These shortcuts are survival tools—built to help us process information quickly. But in today’s hyper-connected world, those same tools are being weaponized.

To outsmart misinformation, we need to:

• Practice media literacy like a brain-based superpower.

• Slow down and ask: “Is this true, or does it just feel true?”

• Be aware of confirmation bias, availability heuristics, and the illusory truth effect.

• Fact-check before we share—even when it fits our worldview.

Because the truth deserves better than playing catch-up.

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