The (un)invited in Collective Action on Social Media: A Socio-Technical Perspective of Fake Nes

Abstract

Collective action is a form of cooperation in which a group of people coordinate their actions and cooperate to achieve a common objective. In collective action, the objective is out of reach for any individual acting alone; hence cooperation is necessary. Contemporary forms of collective action make use of social media as digital platforms providing support for communication and coordination of members’ activities. The use of social media in collective action underpins the success of many initiatives that escalate to a mass size. However, social media amplify also one complication of the collective action: fake news. Fake news is sustained on social media by the same mechanisms that sustain information circulation: the socio- technical interplay of the technical features of the digital platform, and the behavioural habits of social media users in sharing, wittingly or carelessly, fake contents. This short position paper aims at framing the fake news issue in collective action from a socio-technical perspective, motivating the use of the same collective action mechanisms that produce fake news to contrast their diffusion. Keywords