London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Jul 10, 2025

How to stop the spread of fake news? Pause for a moment

How to stop the spread of fake news? Pause for a moment

It’s easy to get distracted by the urge to hit ‘share’. But most of us wouldn’t, if we gave it a moment’s thought

For a while now, I’ve been struggling to find words for a certain kind of mental state I keep experiencing, and of which I see signs in others. It’s not “being distracted”, but it’s not not “being distracted”, either. We tend to think of distraction as an all-or-nothing affair: either you’re concentrating successfully on something, or else you’ve been distracted by Twitter or Netflix yet again. But this is more like an erosion of attention, consistent with at least nominally remaining focused on the task at hand. (The label that comes closest is probably “continuous partial attention”, coined by the writer Linda Stone.) One key symptom is what I can only describe as an impatience with one’s own cognitive processes – an unwillingness to think your thoughts all the way through to the end. And I’m beginning to wonder if this bears some blame for the various predicaments we’re in.

My hunch was reinforced by a new study, which I discovered via Research Digest, about why people share fake news online. The two usual theories are that people who do so aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed (they believe the stories are true), or that they’re cynical jerks focused on slandering the opposition (they don’t care if they’re not true). But the Canadian psychologist Gordon Pennycook and his colleagues found evidence that most people prone to sharing fake news do think it’s important to share only true stories, and are capable of detecting fabricated ones. It’s just that they get distracted – by, among other things, the urge to share the story they’re reading – before they’ve had a proper chance to reflect on its veracity.

“It is hard to imagine,” the researchers write, “that large numbers of people really believed, for example, that Hillary Clinton was operating a child sex ring out of a pizza shop,” and their findings suggest they probably didn’t. When prompted to reflect on the accuracy of a fake headline, participants became much less likely to share it; that simple intervention was sufficient to make them dwell on their own thought processes long enough to see the story was suspect.

I wonder if this also helps explain the depressing tendency in contemporary debate to assume one’s opponents must be acting in bad faith – that instead of believing what they claim to believe, they must be motivated, deep down, by the desire to be evil. After all, how likely is it really that the average Conservative politician “hates poor people”, in a literal or conscious way? Or that people who disagree with you about how to treat childhood gender dysphoria must secretly revel in the suffering of children? Or that Bernie Sanders is, in any meaningful sense of the term, a white supremacist? A few moments’ reflection is enough to see that all are highly improbable. But I’ve seen them all, more or less often, online. And they’re clearly a terrible basis for actually changing anybody’s mind.

Maybe one day they’ll invent a smartphone accessory that physically seizes you by the collar just as you’re about to retweet and yells: “Come on – really? Listen to yourself!”

In the meantime, before we set out to convince others to believe what we believe, it might be worth pausing for a minute, to decide if we truly believe it ourselves.


Listen to this

The writer Rob Walker explores how uncomfortable it can feel to slow down in It Hurts To Be Present, an episode of the Hurry Slowly podcast.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
NVIDIA Achieves Historic Milestone as First Company Valued at $4 Trillion
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as CEO of X After Two Years
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
Azerbaijan and Armenia are on the brink of a historic peace deal.
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Weinstein Victim’s Lawyer Says MeToo Movement Still Strong
U.S. Enacts Sweeping Tax and Spending Legislation Amid Trade Policy Shifts
Football Mourns as Diogo Jota and Brother André Silva Laid to Rest in Portugal
Labour Expected to Withdraw Support for Special Needs Funding Model
Leaked Audio Reveals Tory Aide Defending DEI Record
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
London Stock Exchange Faces Historic Low in Initial Public Offerings
A new online platform has emerged in the United Kingdom, specifically targeting Muslim men seeking virgin brides
Trump Celebrates Independence Day with B-2 Flyover and Signs Controversial Legislation
Boris Johnson Urges Conservatives to Ignore Farage
SNP Ordered to Update Single-Sex Space Guidance Within Days
Starmer Set to Reject Calls for Wealth Taxes
Stolen Century-Old Rolls-Royce Recovered After Hotel Theft
Macron Presses Starmer to Recognise Palestinian State
Labour Delayed Palestine Action Ban Over Riot Concerns
Swinney’s Tax Comments ‘Offensive to Scots’, Say Tories
High Street Retailers to Enforce Bans on Serial Shoplifters
Music Banned by Henry VIII to Be Performed After 500 Years
Steve Coogan Says Working Class Is Being ‘Ethnically Cleansed’
Home Office Admits Uncertainty Over Visa Overstayer Numbers
JD Vance Questions Mandelson Over Reform Party’s Rising Popularity
Macron to Receive Windsor Carriage Ride in Royal Gesture
Labour Accused of ‘Hammering’ Scots During First Year in Power
BBC Head of Music Stood Down Amid Bob Vylan Controversy
Corbyn Eyes Hard-Left Challenge to Starmer’s Leadership
London Tube Trains Suspended After Major Fire Erupts Nearby
Richard Kemp: I Felt Safer in Israel Under Attack Than in the UK
Cyclist Says Police Cited Human Rights Act for Riding No-Handed
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Musk Battles to Protect Tesla Amid Trump Policy Threats
Air France-KLM Acquires Majority Stake in Scandinavian Airlines
UK Educators Sound Alarm on Declining Child Literacy
Shein Fined €40 Million in France Over Misleading Discounts
Brazil’s Lula Visits Kirchner During Argentina House Arrest
Trump Scores Legislative Win as House Passes Tax Reform Bill
Keir Starmer Faces Criticism After Rocky First Year in Power
DJI Launches Heavy-Duty Coaxial Quadcopter with 80 kg Lift Capacity
U.S. Senate Approves Major Legislation Dubbed the 'Big Beautiful Bill'
Largest Healthcare Fraud Takedown in U.S. History Announced by DOJ
×