Spreading rumors on Twitter and mistaking retweets for truth
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 - 10:31
in Psychology & Sociology
A new study of the believability of information received via Twitter and the intention to pass on a tweet—whether news or rumor—is influenced by the number of times the information has already been retweeted. Number of retweets can serve as a normative cue that leads a person to presume that an unverified rumor is true, increasing the likelihood that they will share it with others, according to the study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.