Alexandra Arkhipova, “Why Do We Spread Fake News?”

Public lecture by anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova, on the mechanisms of fake news spread, using the metaphor of a virus and research data from MIT, which showed that fakes spread six times faster than true news. She explains that people spread fakes regardless of education due to an evolutionary need to share danger-related information, a desire for uniqueness, and emotions like disgust and fear. Most fakes are persistent folklore stories (urban legends) that are easy to retell and fit society’s worldview.
Lecture date: March 15, 2019