Misinformation on social media spreads faster and invites more moral outrage

Posts on social media containing misinformation evoke more moral outrage than factual information, a new study has found. Moreover, people are more likely to share the outrage-evoking hogwash without even reading it first.

Social media platforms like Facebook or, to a smaller extent, X have long attempted to limit the spread of misinformation by simply encouraging people to check the accuracy of certain posts before sharing them rather than investing more in in-house fact-checking and removing false information.

A new study shows, though, that these attempts may not be successful. Researchers say that misinformation causes so much moral outrage that social media users share misleading content without even stopping to think.

For the study, recently published in Science, Princeton University’s Killian McLoughlin and her colleagues from various other academic institutions in the US conducted eight studies using US data from Facebook and Twitter over multiple time periods, along with two behavioral experiments, to learn more about outrage related to the spread of misinformation.

In the study, outrage is defined as a mix of anger and disgust triggered by perceived moral transgressions.

The researchers found that misinformation sources evoke more outrage than trustworthy sources and that users are more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without reading it first.

“Consequently, outrage-evoking misinformation may be difficult to mitigate with interventions that assume users want to share accurate information,” says the study.

It also points out that individuals or accounts who express outrage are even seen as more trustworthy. This suggests that news sources might actually gain a credibility advantage by posting outrageous content.

The researchers note that the reason people willingly share outrageous misinformation without checking its accuracy might be the idea that sharing is a way to signal their moral position or membership in certain groups.

Of course, social media platforms themselves play a part as their algorithms, targeting maximum engagement, rank inflammatory content higher – because, quite obviously, outrage is highly engaging.

Social media posts that express outrage are liked and shared more, and ranking algorithms amplify them.

Last week, another study found that X's algorithm was modified in mid-July to systematically boost right-leaning accounts, for instance.

Right-wing accounts, including Elon Musk’s, have spread false claims on X about the US presidential election this year, a report by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate said in November.

“Since outrage is associated with increased engagement online, outrage-evoking misinformation may be likely to spread farther in part because of the algorithmic amplification of engaging content,” write the researchers.

“This is important because algorithms may up-rank news articles associated with outrage, even if a user intended to express outrage toward the article for containing misinformation.”