[Paper Review] The Game Theory of Fake News

Alexander J. Stewart, Antonio A. Arechar+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Aug 31, 2021

Misinformation and Its Impacts4 citations

TL;DR

This paper develops a game-theoretic model of news engagement, showing that even truth-seeking consumers can exhibit higher engagement with false stories due to strategic misinformation dissemination. Empirical data from 20,000 accuracy ratings and Facebook engagement show that misinformation sites generate more engagement with less accurate content—despite users' stated preference for accuracy—highlighting a critical disconnect between revealed behavior and true preferences.

ABSTRACT

A great deal of empirical research has examined who falls for misinformation and why. Here, we introduce a formal game-theoretic model of engagement with news stories that captures the strategic interplay between (mis)information consumers and producers. A key insight from the model is that observed patterns of engagement do not necessarily reflect the preferences of consumers. This is because producers seeking to promote misinformation can use strategies that lead moderately inattentive readers to engage more with false stories than true ones -- even when readers prefer more accurate over less accurate information. We then empirically test people's preferences for accuracy in the news. In three studies, we find that people strongly prefer to click and share news they perceive as more accurate -- both in a general population sample, and in a sample of users recruited through Twitter who had actually shared links to misinformation sites online. Despite this preference for accurate news -- and consistent with the predictions of our model -- we find markedly different engagement patterns for articles from misinformation versus mainstream news sites. Using 1,000 headlines from 20 misinformation and 20 mainstream news sites, we compare Facebook engagement data with 20,000 accuracy ratings collected in a survey experiment. Engagement with a headline is negatively correlated with perceived accuracy for misinformation sites, but positively correlated with perceived accuracy for mainstream sites. Taken together, these theoretical and empirical results suggest that consumer preferences cannot be straightforwardly inferred from empirical patterns of engagement.

Motivation & Objective

• To model the strategic dynamics between news producers and consumers in the spread of misinformation.
• To investigate why engagement patterns may misrepresent actual consumer preferences for accuracy.
• To test whether users who share misinformation still prefer accurate content in controlled experiments.
• To examine whether partisan identity moderates the relationship between perceived accuracy and engagement.

Proposed method

• Developed a game-theoretic 'misinformation game' with transmitters (news outlets) and receivers (audiences), modeling strategic choices over true vs. false stories.
• Assumed receivers use noisy, myopic optimization to update beliefs based on perceived accuracy and past transmitter behavior.
• Modeled transmitters as adjusting story veracity based on prior engagement, using a strategy that increases false content when engagement is high.
• Collected 20,000 accuracy ratings from participants on 1,000 headlines from 40 outlets (20 mainstream, 20 misinformation) and matched them with Facebook engagement data from Crowdtangle.
• Used linear regression with clustered robust standard errors to analyze the relationship between perceived accuracy and engagement (clicking/sharing intentions), including partisanship and interaction effects.
• Conducted post hoc analyses to test for partisan differences in the accuracy-engagement relationship across three experimental studies.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 Can strategic dissemination of false stories lead truth-seeking consumers to engage more with misinformation than with accurate content, even when they prefer accuracy?
• RQ2 To what extent do observed engagement patterns reflect actual consumer preferences for accuracy, versus strategic manipulation by content producers?
• RQ3 Does partisanship moderate the relationship between perceived accuracy and engagement with news stories?
• RQ4 Do users who have previously shared links to misinformation sites still express a preference for accurate content in controlled settings?

Key findings

• Despite a strong preference for accurate news, users engaged more with headlines from misinformation sites when those headlines were less accurate, indicating a disconnect between stated preference and behavior.
• The correlation between perceived accuracy and engagement was negative for misinformation sites (r = -0.21) and positive for mainstream sites (r = 0.38), confirming the model’s prediction of divergent engagement patterns.
• In all three experiments, users expressed a significant positive association between perceived accuracy and both clicking and sharing intentions, even among those who had shared links to misinformation sites.
• No significant interaction was found between partisanship and perceived accuracy in predicting engagement in most experiments, indicating the preference for accuracy is consistent across political leanings.
• Even for the most Republican-leaning users, the positive relationship between perceived accuracy and clicking intention remained strong (β = 0.318, p < 0.001).
• The model predicts that publishers of misinformation can induce higher engagement with false stories by using mixed-content strategies and increasing false content when engagement is high—without needing to make false stories more emotionally or cognitively salient.