The Concept of Fake News: The Roles of Falsity, Deception, and Politics

Philosophers disagree about what makes news “fake”: some believe it is falsity, whereas others emphasize intentional deception about the content or the source. We report two preregistered studies (total N=1200) testing whether falsity and source deception predict fake-news classification. Participants evaluated scenarios in which a claim was either true or false, and the article appeared on either the official New York Times website or that of a near-identical impersonator. In both studies, falsity and source deception independently increased fake-news classifications, indicating that many participants did not treat “fake news” as a synonym for “false news”. Whereas with a predictive claim (Study 1), the factors amplified each other, with a past-tense claim (Study 2), falsity was near-determinative and the interaction not reliable. Across both studies, conservatism predicted increased fake-news classifications, but the association disappeared once perceived source reliability was included, suggesting politics operates via biased priors rather than differences in meaning.