ABSTRACT
Fake news has attracted a lot of scholarly attention. Social media companies, which have borne much of the blame for the spread of fake news through their platforms, have taken actions, such as limiting how often a message can be forwarded, deleting accounts that share fake news, and partnering with third-party fact-checkers to debunk fake news. A famous example is a fake news article that wrongly reported that Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic church, had endorsed then-candidate Donald Trump. It is important, however, to distinguish between motivations for creating fake news stories on one hand and sharing fake news stories on the other. The popularity of fake news as a research topic is partly based on its assumed negative impact on numerous aspects of social life. Thus, fake news has also been weaponised to weaken trust in social institutions, including science, politics, and journalism.
