Misinformation and biases infect social media, both intentionally and accidentally

People who share potential misinformation on Twitter (in purple) rarely get to see corrections or fact-checking (in orange). Shao et al., CC BY-ND Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, University of South Florida and Filippo Menczer, Indiana University Social media are among the primary sources of news in the U.S. and across the […] Read more »

What makes people distrust science? Surprisingly, not politics

Today, there is a crisis of trust in science. Many people – including politicians and, yes, even presidents – publicly express doubts about the validity of scientific findings. Meanwhile, scientific institutions and journals express their concerns about the public’s increasing distrust in science. How is it possible that science, the […] Read more »

You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to

Do we have the right to believe whatever we want to believe? This supposed right is often claimed as the last resort of the wilfully ignorant, the person who is cornered by evidence and mounting opinion: ‘I believe climate change is a hoax whatever anyone else says, and I have […] Read more »