Abstract
INTRODUCTION: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: 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.