Government Interventions Against Fake News

• In Event: Censorship, Propaganda, and Transparency

Abstract

The quality of democracy hinges critically on the fact that citizens are not only well-, but also correctly-informed. Recently, the advancements in the information and communication technology that are supposed to achieve the former, however, also endanger the latter for facilitating the dissemination of fake news. How should the government address its spread? In this paper, we try to address this issue by theoretically modeling the genesis of mis/disinformation by delving into the incentive structure of its senders, and, more critically, how the government’s actions affect the strategic interactions among the government, the sender of fake news, and the public as the receiver.

As we have learnt from the existing theoretical research, fake news is not very effective in persuading Bayesian learners. Empirical research also confirms this theoretical finding. The primary effect of fake news is leading to a distortion of the information environment. The government’s response against the distortion determines the impact of fake news. The key feature in our formal model is that an argument (a piece of news) consists of two characteristics: quality of the evidence and a policy suggestion. The two characteristics are positively correlated but not perfectly collinear: When an argument is supporting a correct policy (matching the state of the world), it is more likely the information provider can support it with solid evidence.

The government may decide to actively act against fake news. For example, France has passed a new law to tackle the spreading of false news in late 2018 with severe punishment. If so, the government needs to recognize whether a piece of news is fake and censors a potential fake. The government has to make decisions promptly; that means, a truthful report can be mistakenly recognized to be fake. At the same time, the government is also publicly known for its policy preference because it needs to be transparently promoting its policy. To avoid the possibility of being involved into fake news controversies, some information providers may commit self-censorship, creating an awkward sound of silence. The impact of fake news is thus twofold: 1) making government less able to convince the public with the information available on the table; 2) letting government more likely to make wrong decisions due to self-censorship. We also show that fake news is most problematic when the producers of rumors do not care about the issues but only want to challenge the legitimacy of the government.

Authors

• Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, New York University Abu Dhabi

• Hans Hanpu Tung, National Taiwan University

• Wen-Chin Wu, Academia Sinica