Can you spot fake news? Here are the headlines of three recent stories that received wide coverage: “Putin issues international arrest warrant for George Soros”; “A baby born in California was named heart eyes emoji”; “Criminal farts so loudly he gives away his hiding place”. Did you recognise that only one of these stories was true – the third one?
This is the type of test that Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology in society at Cambridge University, likes to use in experiments, as outlined in his fascinating, if slightly terrifying, new book.
