How people get sucked into misinformation rabbit holes – and how to get them out

By Emily Booth, Research assistant, University of Technology Sydney
Marian-Andrei Rizoiu, Associate Professor in Behavioral Data Science, University of Technology Sydney

As misinformation and radicalisation rise, it’s tempting to look for something to blame: the internet, social media personalities, sensationalised political campaigns, religion, or conspiracy theories. And once we’ve settled on a cause, solutions usually follow: do more fact-checking, regulate advertising, ban YouTubers deemed to have “gone too far”.

However, if these strategies were the whole answer, we should already be seeing a decrease in people being drawn into fringe communities and beliefs, and less misinformation in the online environment. We’re not.

In new research…

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