title: Information battleground: Conflict perceptions motivate the belief in and sharing of fake news about the adversary
abstract: Why do people disseminate fake news online? We investigate this question by focusing on the effect of perceived conflict on the endorsement of fake news in the context of a regional conflict between Russia and the West as experienced by Ukrainian citizens. In our survey experiment, a sample of Ukrainians (N= 1,615) was randomly assigned to read negative fake news stories about Russia, the European Union or Tanzania – a country with no stakes in the conflict. We find that perceived conflict betwe