Key takeaways
- A 2018 study in Science of about 126,000 news stories on Twitter found false news spread “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth,” and that people, not bots, were mainly responsible.
- Repetition makes statements feel more true, even highly implausible ones.
- People often share misinformation not because they believe it, but because they aren’t thinking about accuracy at the moment. A small prompt to think about accuracy improved what people shared.
- A quick check called SIFT (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace the claim) takes about a minute, and teaching a similar “lateral reading” approach improved students’ fact-checking in a study.
This article is general information based on published research and a digital-literacy method. It isn’t a guarantee against being fooled.
Trick 1: False news is more novel, so it spreads
Researchers studied about 126,000 verified true and false news stories shared by around 3 million people on Twitter between 2006 and 2017. They reported in Science (2018) that “falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information,” most strongly for political news. They found false news was more novel than true news, and that false stories inspired “fear, disgust, and surprise” in replies, while true stories inspired “anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust.” And “contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate,” meaning false news spreads more because “humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.”
Trick 2: Repetition makes things feel true
This is called the illusory truth effect. A 2019 study in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review reported that “belief in all statements is increased by repetition,” and that the effect “occurs across all levels of plausibility.” The authors concluded: “even highly implausible statements will become more plausible with enough repetition.” Seeing the same false claim in many places can make it feel familiar, and familiar feels true.
Trick 3: Not stopping to think
A 2019 study in Cognition with 3,446 online participants tested whether people fall for fake headlines because of political bias or because of limited analytical thinking. The authors found that people who scored higher on a test of analytical reasoning were better at telling fake from real, “even for headlines that align with individuals’ political ideology.” Their conclusion was that susceptibility to fake news “is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning.” That’s a finding about one set of experiments, not a rule for everyone.
Trick 4: Sharing without checking
A 2021 study in Nature found “the veracity of headlines has little effect on sharing intentions, despite having a large effect on judgments of accuracy,” which suggests “sharing does not necessarily indicate belief.” Yet most participants said it’s important to share only accurate news. The researchers ran survey experiments and a field experiment on Twitter, and found that “subtly shifting attention to accuracy increases the quality of news that people subsequently share.” Their conclusion: people often share misinformation because “their attention is focused on factors other than accuracy.”
In plain words: it often isn’t that people don’t care about truth. It’s that they aren’t thinking about it in the moment.
A 60-second method: SIFT
SIFT, created by digital literacy researcher Mike Caulfield and used to teach students since 2017, is a short list of “moves.” He says “taking sixty seconds to figure out where media is from before reading will help you decide if it is worth your time.”
- Stop. Before you read or share, ask whether you know the source and its reputation. If not, use the other moves. Also stop if you find yourself going down a rabbit hole, and remember your purpose.
- Investigate the source. Know what you’re reading before you read it. Caulfield’s example: a piece on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, versus a video on the benefits of milk from the dairy industry. “This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and that the dairy industry can’t be trusted,” but you should know the expertise and agenda.
- Find better coverage. Sometimes you care about the claim, not the article. Look for trusted reporting on the claim and scan several sources to see what the expert consensus seems to be.
- Trace claims, quotes and media back to the original context. Much online content “has been stripped of context.” Find the original study, full video or original quote to see whether it was presented accurately.
Does this kind of method work?
A 2021 study in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications tested teaching college students “lateral reading,” the strategy expert fact-checkers use: leaving a page to see what other sources say about it. Students who took the course (136) were more likely to use lateral reading and correctly evaluate the trustworthiness of information than students in regular civics classes (94). This is one study in one setting, and it tested a related curriculum, not SIFT itself, but it supports the approach behind it.
A quick checklist
- Do I know who published this?
- What do other trusted sources say about this claim?
- Can I find the original quote, study or video?
- Am I reacting emotionally? (The Science study found false news triggered fear, disgust and surprise.)
- Am I about to share something I haven’t checked?
The same habits help with scams. See our guides to spotting a phishing email and AI voice cloning scams.
Frequently asked questions
Does fake news really spread faster than true news? A large 2018 study of about 126,000 Twitter stories found false news spread farther and faster than true news, mostly because of people sharing.
Why do I believe things I’ve seen many times? The illusory truth effect: repetition increases belief, even for implausible statements.
What is SIFT? Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims to the original context.
How long does a fact-check take? A basic source check can take about 60 seconds, according to SIFT’s creator. Deeper checking takes longer.
Information checked on: November 13, 2026. Research continues, so check current sources.
Sources
- The spread of true and false news online. Science, 2018
- Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition, 2019
- Repetition increases perceived truth equally for plausible and implausible statements. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2019
- Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online. Nature, 2021
- Improving college students’ fact-checking strategies through lateral reading instruction in a general education civics course. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2021
- Mike Caulfield, “SIFT (The Four Moves),” Hapgood (June 19, 2019)
