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You’re more likely to believe fake news shared by someone you barely know than by your best friend
"The strength of weak ties" applies to misinformation, too.
Online, though, a headline might reach you from a news site you’ve never heard of, filtered through the lens of some rando you don’t recognize but who got retweeted by someone you kinda know. Thus, while the strength of weak ties effect is present in this context, the underlying theoretical mechanism differs from the novelty of information traditionally observed in other settings. Second, to curb fake news consumption and its dissemination, we expand on the recommendation from recent research that calls for healthy skepticism by encouraging users to carefully evaluate information from weak ties.
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