One reason lies spread faster than true stories on social media is that lies can be designed to be clickbait, while the truth is constrained by the facts. This has been notably true with stories about election fraud, but it is by no means confined to lies originating at the top.
The Washington Post has the story:
"President Trump tweeted that America’s election was being stolen, and Twitter put labels over his lies over a dozen times and counting. “This tweet is disputed and might be misleading,” it warned.
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"But as tech products, the labels were too little, too late. There’s scant evidence that labels make a lick of difference to viewers. Moreover, they didn’t stop the flow of toxic election content on social media. That’s because social media’s business model is toxic content.
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"when we look back on the 2020 election, we’ll remember it for the domestic disinformation campaigns and alternate-reality bubbles that grew, in part, because of technology designed to amplify them. This was the year where some 70 candidates for office embraced at least parts of the wacky QAnon online conspiracy theory, and one of them — Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — got elected to Congress.
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"There is one way labels could definitely be effective, disinformation experts agree: by making it physically harder to share misinformation — adding speed bumps to the information superhighway.
"Facebook said Friday it had added a mini speed bump: forcing people to look at an additional message before they could share a flagged post.
"Twitter was the only one that made a significant speed bump effort on election night. Trump’s tweets covered by warning labels had to be clicked on to be seen, and didn’t show retweet and like counts. And they couldn’t be shared without adding your own context on top.
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