During the recent 2024 American presidential election, fake news and its associated problems have gained momentum. Artificial intelligence (AI) amplifies these problems as fake news fabricated by traditional forms of AI—and more recently by generative forms of it—has become omnipresent on social media. Older social media users, defined here as 65 years of age and over, can be especially vulnerable to fake news. This is alarming at a time when older people are obtaining most of their news online and when the aging of the population in many countries has accelerated. Against this backdrop, this research-in-progress develops a model to investigate whether age-related changes in cognitive abilities are responsible for the impact of age on users’ willingness to read fake news articles. This will shed light on a variety of ways that managers of social media platforms and policy makers can support older users.