Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

Mark Twain once said that 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.' And he said this before the age of social media. Turns out Twain was more right than he could have ever imagined. Researchers at MIT found that fake news travels faster than the truth on social media. In fact, six times faster.  They believe it's because "False news is more novel than true news."  The study was published in the journal Science and found that “falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than truth in all categories of information.” Fake news threatens our civic health. Truth is central to a healthy society and it’s up to each of us to call out fake news whether it be on Facebook, Twitter or in personal conversation.