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Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
@DucuGavril
Jun 29 • 11 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Why do people consume fake news?

It’s not just ignorance.
It’s not just tech.

It’s identity.
Emotion.
Repetition.

And trust—or the collapse of it.

This thread recaps key findings from Gradim & Amaral (2020). Image
Our source:

Anabela Gradim & Inês Amaral (2020)
Understanding Fake News Consumption: A Review
Published in Social Sciences (MDPI)

doi.org/10.3390/socsci…Image
Fake news isn’t new.

It has adapted to every major media shift—print, radio, TV, internet.

What’s new is the scale, speed, and personalization of digital misinformation.
Key takeaway #1: It’s not about stupidity.

Belief in fake news is driven by:

Motivated reasoning
Confirmation bias
Identity protection

Smart people are just better at defending bad ideas.
Key takeaway #2: Trust collapse is the fuel.

When people stop trusting institutions—media, government, science—they turn to whatever affirms their worldview.

Fake news becomes a form of control in a chaotic world.
Key takeaway #3: Emotion drives virality.

Fake news spreads because it triggers:

Anger
Fear
Outrage
Truth moves slowly.

Emotion travels fast.
Key takeaway #4: Education helps—but isn’t enough.

Media literacy improves awareness.

But it doesn’t override emotion or tribal loyalty.

Critical thinking must be paired with critical feeling.
Key takeaway #5: Repetition builds belief.

The more familiar a lie becomes, the more plausible it feels.

We don’t need to be persuaded—just exposed.

Again.

And again.
Key takeaway #6: The boundaries are blurring.

People struggle to distinguish:

Fake news
Biased framing
Satire
Opinion

Without clear categories, misinformation becomes normalized.
Final thought:

We don’t defeat fake news with facts alone.

We need:

Emotional awareness
Media humility
Rebuilt trust

And systems that value reflection over reaction

#FakeNews #MediaLiteracy
If you find this series useful and want to support more independent educational content on disinformation, you can do that here:



Every share or sip helps.

#FakeNews #MediaLiteracybuymeacoffee.com/nafoforum

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More from @DucuGavril

Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 30
Listen to me now, because I am not saying this for you.

I am saying it for myself, and for the people I love.

This is a warning.

Not an opinion.
Not a metaphor.

A warning.
Russia is not just at war with Ukraine.

It is not just feuding with the West.

It is enacting a cosmic mission—drawn from a real, historical ideology.

Its name is Cosmism. And it has never gone away. Image
Cosmism began in 19th-century Russia with one idea:

That humanity’s sacred task is to defeat death, resurrect the dead, and colonize the stars.

It inspired rockets. Eugenics. Cryonics. Nationalist theology.

And it is shaping Kremlin policy right now.

philosophyforlife.org/blog/17-russia…
Read 13 tweets
Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 30
.
Margarita Simonyan just told Russians they don’t need breakfast, bottled water, or to worry about death.

Because everyone who ever lived will be “medically resurrected.”

This isn’t just propaganda.

It’s Russian Cosmism—a real ideology with deep roots and growing power. Image
The belief in techno-resurrection and cosmic destiny isn’t fringe in Russia.

It was first proposed by Nikolai Fedorov in the 1800s and later embraced by literary giants, rocket scientists, and Communist utopians.

They called it the “Philosophy of the Common Task.”
The Common Task?

Achieve immortality
Resurrect every human who ever lived
Colonize the cosmos to make room for them

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

Fedorov saw science and faith as partners in a human-divine mission.
Read 11 tweets
Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 29
How “fake news” became a weapon.

It started as a joke.
Became an accusation.

And turned into a global threat to journalism and truth.

This recap covers what Cunha et al. (2018) taught us about the rise—and distortion—of a viral term.
Our source:

Cunha et al. (2018)

Fake News as We Feel It: Perception and Conceptualization of the Term ‘Fake News’ in the Media

Presented at SocInfo, published by Springer

academia.edu/43228329/Fake_…
Key finding #1: The 2016 election was a turning point.

Before 2016, “fake news” meant satire or clickbait.

After 2016, it became a political slur—used to discredit real journalism.

One moment redefined global media language.
Read 11 tweets
Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 29
Why precision matters.

“Fake news” became a global insult.

But it was never a clear category.

This thread explains why vague, viral language is dangerous—and how we fight it.
Cunha et al. (2018) show that “fake news” changed fast.

It went from describing satire and hoaxes—to being a political weapon, media frame, and emotional trigger.

But its definition never caught up.
Why is that a problem?

Because vague terms are:

Easy to politicize
Hard to challenge
Ripe for manipulation

If “fake news” can mean anything, it can be used against everything.
Read 10 tweets
Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 29
When a joke stops being funny.

“Fake news” used to mean satire.

Then it became slander.

This thread explains how humor lost its clarity—and why that confusion became a powerful tool for manipulation.
Cunha et al. (2018) point to a key shift:

Before 2016, “fake news” often referred to sites like:

The Onion
The Daily Show
Saturday Night Live

It meant parody. It meant commentary. It meant “clearly not real.”
But satire relies on one thing: shared understanding.

When audiences know the joke, it’s humor.
When they don’t—it’s misinformation.
And when people confuse the two, trust breaks down.

That’s where the danger starts.
Read 10 tweets
Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴🇩🇪🇺🇲🇳🇱🇪🇺@🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jun 29
How one election redefined a global term.

Before 2016, “fake news” meant satire, hoaxes, or clickbait.

After 2016, it became a political weapon.

This thread explains how the U.S. election made “fake news” a global insult.
Cunha et al. (2018) show how fast the shift happened.

They analyzed:

The rise of “fake news” in media articles
The surge in emotional negativity around the term
The global uptake of a U.S.-rooted phrase

The tipping point: the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Before the election, “fake news” had low visibility.

It appeared occasionally to describe:

Satirical news

Parody websites

Obvious fabrications for clicks

It was informal. Sometimes even playful.
Read 10 tweets

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