Because outrage is associated with increased engagement online, outrage evoking misinformation may be likely to spread farther in part because of the algorithmic amplification of engaging content.

This is important because algorithms may up-rank news articles associated with outrage, even if a user intended to express outrage toward the article for containing misinformation.

Our findings suggest that misinformation exploits outrage to spread and offers concrete evidence for policy-makers to consider when attempting to craft effective solutions.