Fake news and social media: Research grant success for Dr. Gordon Pennycook

Gordon Pennycook, new faculty member in Organizational Behavior with the Hill and Levene Schools of Business as of July 1, has just received a research grant from the Miami Foundation for $250,000 USD. This grant is from the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund. Gord is the principal investigator and his co-investigator is David Rand, Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT (Sloan).

The research will examine why people fall for fake and hyperpartisan news and to use these insights to develop novel interventions to fight misinformation on social media. Pennycook and Rand’s ultimate goal is to inform both public policy and the behavior of social media companies by having them implement their rigorously tested and theoretically derived interventions.