Anger makes fake news viral online
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Fake news that manipulates political elections, strikes financial systems and even incites riots, is more viral than real news online, resulting unstable societies and buffeted democracy. It is found that the easier contagion of fake news online can be causally explained by more anger it carries. Offline questionnaires further reveal that anger leads to more incentivized audiences on anxiety management and information sharing and accordingly makes fake news more contagious than real news online. Our results suggest that the digital contagion of emotions, in particular the anger, should be comprehensively considered in profiling the online information spread. Cures like tagging anger in social media could be inspired to slowdown or prevent the contagion of fake news at the very beginning.
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