Emotional Misinformation Spreading

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# Emotional Misinformation Spreading
## Hannah Metzler
### Complexity Science Hub & Medical University of Vienna
### Intelligent Machines, Emotions and Our Planet <br> Stockholm - 14.01.2022

Slides: hannahmetzler.eu/emomis_stockholm

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<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73510-5#Fig3"> Cinelli et al. (2020);</a> 
<a href="https://www.ajtmh.org/view/journals/tpmd/103/4/article-p1621.xml">Islam et al.; (2020) </a> 
<a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation">Brennen et al. (2020) </a>
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## COVID-19 & misinformation spreading

<img src="figures/Cinelli2020_infodemic_socialmedia.png" width="950" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
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<img src="figures/Brennen2020_COVID_factcheck_increase.svg" width="700" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
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<img src="figures/Islam_et_al_2020_infodemic.svg" width="700" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
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???

knitr::include_graphics("figures/Akbar_misinfo_india.png")
<a href="http://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/an-archive-of-covid-19-related-fake-news-in-india/">Akbar et al. (2020) </a>

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<a href="https://psyarxiv.com/qejxv/"> Metzler et al.  (2021) Collective emotions during the COVID-19 outbreak.</a> 
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## COVID-19 & emotional expressions on Twitter

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<img src="figures/countrymap.svg" width="700" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

* 18 countries - 6 languages
* 8.3 billion tweets
* % tweets expressing an emotion
* Emotion dictionaries
* 5 weeks after day with >30 cases
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<img src="figures/EmotionTimelines_Italy_with_stringency.svg" width="700" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017701615"> van Prooijen & Douglas (2017); </a> 
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620934692"> Imhoff & Lamberty (2020) </a>

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## Misinformation spreading: Why emotions?

* Increase of misinformation in crisis situations

* Powerlessness and loss of control 
    * Sense making to reduce uncertainty
    
<br>
<img src="https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/AP_20081549688183.jpg" width="300" />
<img src="https://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/feuilleton/1083995003/1.7264674/mmobject-still_full/nachdem-eine-krankenschwester.jpg" width="355" />
<img src="figures/mig-29-1533260_1920.jpg" width="265" />

???
* Illusion of control and understanding

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<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1754073908097189"> Rimé (2009); </a> 
<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0963721417718261">  Douglas et al. (2017); </a> 
<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/annoyed-black-woman-having-video-chat-on-smartphone-at-home-5699823/"> Photo by Alex Green </a> 
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## Misinformation spreading: Why emotions?

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**Emotions** attract attention & <br> trigger reactions

* Sharing of emotional content
  * Sensational or fake news
<br> <br>

**Social** beliefs

* Social identity & self-esteem
  * Group belonging
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???

* Social motives: positive self image, belonging to our groups, defending against threat

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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.007"> Pennycook & Rand (2021); </a>
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00252-3"> Martel et al. (2020) </a>
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## Solutions?

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* Current solutions focus on accuracy only

* Relying on emotions increases belief in fake news

* Facts alone do not change people's minds
<br> <br> 
* People use social media for **social** reasons

* Algorithms are biased toward **emotional** information

**Solutions need to consider emotions**
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## Emotional misinformation spreading

<center>Social media data + experiments + modelling </center>

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**1) Social media data analysis**

* Which emotions?

* Dynamic of emotions & misinformation

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???

* Emotions in news
* Emotional responses

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## Emotional misinformation spreading

Could emotion regulation interventions be part of the solution?
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**2) Controlled online experiments**

* Belief in fake and real news stories

* Explaining emotional manipulation

* Emotional skepticism & labelling: <br> Pause when you feel emotional <br> What are you feeling?
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<a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1134271.1134277"> Image from Lada & Glance (2005)</a> 
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## Emotional misinformation spreading

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**3) Agent-based modelling**
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* Can individual interventions have collective effects on social media? 
* How many and which users?
* Effects of different content recommendation algorithms?
* Can the best interventions be effective against emotionally biased algorithms?

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# Thank you!

Thanks to my collaborators and our funders!

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* More about the team: [dgarcia.eu](https://dgarcia.eu)

* Staying in touch:
  * metzler@csh.ac.at
  * [hannahmetzler.eu](hannahmetzler.eu)
  * [@hannametzler1](https://twitter.com/hannahmetzler1)
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