I know this is sort of off topic but I think Psychology is pretty great sometimes and while it doesn't explain why we behave the way we do, it does a great job studying it, at least. So to explain why fake news is so rampant and why despite us being in the middle of the technology age, so many are still ignorant, they conducted a study on what makes a source credible. It's a very long and thorough study, so I will like it for you to read, but the gist of it is this: any long text which is too boring to read word for word is automatically taken for truth. Images add credibility. And simply adding a reference - even if it isn't a credible reference or if it's not related to the information at all - will make readers assume truth, and most won't even think to validate the links.

Here's the full story:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...