The Liar’s Dividend: Can Politicians Use Deepfakes and Fake News to Evade Accountability?

This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians "crying wolf" over fake news. Strategic and false allegations that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support in the face of information damaging to their reputation. We posit that this concept, known as the "liar's dividend," works through two theoretical channels: by invoking informational uncertainty or by encouraging oppositional rallying of core supporters. To evaluate the implications of the liar's dividend, we use three survey experiments detailing hypothetical politician responses to video or text news stories depicting real politician scandals. We find that allegations of misinformation raise politician support, while potentially undermining trust in media. Moreover, these false claims produce greater dividends for politicians than longstanding alternative responses to scandal, such as remaining silent or apologizing. Finally, false allegations of misinformation pay off less for videos ("deepfakes") than text stories ("fake news").