Although many think of social media when they consider the spread of disinformation or false claims, people have been sharing news—fact and fiction—since they began to communicate.

A novel two-day conference at The University of Texas at Arlington explored why people share disinformation, which can include not realizing the information is false, wanting the story to be true and enjoying the way it feels to share knowledge and interact with others.

Organized by Daniel Levine, Amandeep Dhaliwal, Helen Abadzi and Derek Mangino Sirvent from UTA's Psychology Department, speakers at the conference included faculty from UTA as well as researchers from Columbia University, Harvard University, Aarhus University in Denmark and the Online Hate Prevention Institute based in Australia. The conference focused on the social media aspects of persuasion, including individual differences in the tendency to believe and transmit true or false information.

"You can't really tell the difference of what's real and what isn't. I think that's a real danger," said Morteza Khaledi, dean of the College of Science at UTA, in his opening remarks.

As social media becomes the go-to place for information-gathering, it is imperative we understand its potential and pitfalls, especially for the misinformed voting public, said Amanda Jordan, communication lecturer at UTA. About one-third of Americans regularly consume news on Facebook and about a third get their news from X/Twitter, with a growing number of...

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