# A Survey on the Criteria Used to Judge (Fake) News in Italian Population

## TL;DR

This study explores how people in Italy determine if a news item is true or fake, finding that similar criteria are used for both, though with differing emphasis.

## Contribution

The study provides empirical insights into the criteria used by the Italian population for judging the truthfulness of news items.

## Key findings

- People use similar criteria like source reliability for both true and fake news judgments.
- The frequency of criteria use differs between true and fake news assessments.

## Abstract

Fake news detection falls within the field of deception detection and, consequently, can be problematic due to no consensus on which cues increase the detection accuracy and because people's ability to detect is poor.

The present study aimed to investigate the criteria used by general population to establish if a given news item is true or fake by surveying a sample of the Italian population. We recruited 329 participants who had to reply to some questions on which criteria they used to conclude a given news item was true. The same questions were also asked to investigate the ones used for fake news judgments.

Our results showed that, overall, people use similar criteria (e.g., reliability of the source and presence of scientific references) to conclude that news is true versus fake, although their use rates differ for true and fake news.

Criteria to detect fake versus truthful news in Italian population.