People rely on their attitudes more than the source when judging the accuracy of news stories on Facebook

The role of 'fake news' in shaping political behaviour has received extensive attention in recent years, with Facebook and other websites undertaking a number of measures to try and address the problem. Drawing on an experimental study during the 2017 German federal election campaign, Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg illustrates that people rely far more on their pre-existing political attitudes when judging the accuracy of a story on Facebook than they do on the reputation of a news source.