Study: Fake News Spreads Faster on Twitter than Real News

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Megalith

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According to three MIT researchers, Twitter is all about fake news and propaganda. They came to this conclusion by comparing how frequently real and false stories were tweeted: the latter won by a huge margin. They say that humans can only blame themselves, as an algorithm was used to strip out potential bots.

For instance, the true news-related tweets rarely reached over 1,000 people. In contrast, the top 1 percent of tweets carrying false news routinely spread from between 1,000 to 100,000 people. Fake political news was especially viral; it reached over 20,000 people faster than what other false news categories could do.
 
Fantasy worlds are often more popular than boring normal worlds in games, right? Why should news be any different?
 
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Jim Kim said:
Makes sense, Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study
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I wouldn't doubt that Trump people are much more likely to spread news from questionable sources. However, this tells us nothing about what Trump supporters as a whole believe or how they get their news. I also question the determination of what counts as "junk news" sources, as overall trust in mainstream news media is about 40%.

I've also seen plenty of surveys on beliefs of right wing people and left wing people showing that, although people on the right are more likely to be anti vaccine, it's more of a 60 40 split, and Left wing people were more likely to be anti vaccine some years ago. I've also seen surveys stating that a majority of people on the left believe that the Russian actuallly hacked the US election and changed votes to elect Trump. Previously, I've seen surveys showing that a majority on the left believe that George Bush was at least "more likely than not" to be behind 9/11.
 
Jim Kim said:
Makes sense, Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study
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http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/nkn28k0m0p/econTabReport.pdf

According to this survey performed by yougov, 59% of democrats believed that it was at least probably true that Russia altered vote tallies.

The site that I got this link from itself was quite dodgy, and I'm sure it would be rated a "fake news" site by the researchers. I'm also sure that this site has published fake news from time to time. However, this survey was 100% legit, and yougov surveys are referenced by mainstream media quite often. Often times, "fake news" sites will publish info that is quite true. "Fake news" sites often times get things wrong, maybe even more often than not, but one of the main reasons that the mainstream wants to take down these sights is that their bias differs from those in the mainstream. It isn't as simple as "fringe news sources are completely untrustworthy while mainstream news sources are coompletely newsworthy," as the mainstream media tries to present the situation.
 
spugm1r3 said:
This is because fake news, unlike real news, is specifically tailored to illicit a visceral reaction. Its engineered to encourage surface reading and quick reactions.
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What you just said describes the majority of articles that I'm seeing come out of CNN, etc.

There's an interesting news and information source I've recently discovered called "knifemedia." They go through mainstream news articles, and even some on the fringe, and pull out anything that is a statement of opinion or incorrect logic. They then present only the known facts gleaned from the articles.

https://www.theknifemedia.com
 
spugm1r3 said:
This is because fake news, unlike real news, is specifically tailored to illicit a visceral reaction. Its engineered to encourage surface reading and quick reactions.
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Exactly!

Woman gives birth to healthy baby will get less tenacity than baby found being raised by wolves behind Kmart in Nebraska.
 
Mega6 said:
That's Right - Putin still Won!
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One thing I still don't under stand.

Hillary was already bought and paid for, and had positions favorable to Putin.

Why would Putin have wanted Trump who had positions on oil production and other stuff that would hurt Russia/Putin?
 
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nutzo said:
One thing I still don't under stand.

Hillary was already bought and paid for, and had positions favorable to Putin.

Why would Putin have wanted Trump who had positions on oil production and other stuff that would hurt Russia/Putin?
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I think the prevailing argument is, not so much that Putin wants Trump, but that Putin wants both discord and a US that looks more inward than out. Trump's personality achieves the former, while his policies serve the latter.
 
This research must have taken them about 10 seconds to realize the results.
 
That's because fake news is generally more interesting, easier to digest, and usually supports a specific world view.

Real news tends to be shades of grey.
 
spugm1r3 said:
I think the prevailing argument is, not so much that Putin wants Trump, but that Putin wants both discord and a US that looks more inward than out. Trump's personality achieves the former, while his policies serve the latter.
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I still have yet to see any research showing that bots or fake news have had any significant effect on the election, meanwhile I have found a lot of research showing that it hasn't had a significant impact and the election result would be the same either way. Meanwhile the narrative is that Russia changed the election in the MSM. So isn't that "fake news?" Sure, they don't technically come out and say it directly, but they report certain "facts" in disingenuous ways in order to make it seem like the case.
 
gusphase said:
I still have yet to see any research showing that bots or fake news have had any significant effect on the election, meanwhile I have found a lot of research showing that it hasn't had a significant impact and the election result would be the same either way. Meanwhile the narrative is that Russia changed the election in the MSM. So isn't that "fake news?" Sure, they don't technically come out and say it directly, but they report certain "facts" in disingenuous ways in order to make it seem like the case.
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You dont need research to show the 'potential'. Sometimes we have to understand the potential of the attempt.

Eventhough she failed, we have to check on the woman that is looking for someone to 'off' her husband. When she finds someone to do it, she gets arrested.

Recently a Kardashian said something negative about snapchat. Stock lost over a billion in value. Maybe made it up by now, but it shows how easily some folks make moves based on what they hear.

Bet some well placed posts - fake news - would lean folks to vote one way or the other.

Reading everything as a factual truth because everything on the internet is factual (lol) ;)
 
nutzo said:
One thing I still don't under stand.

Hillary was already bought and paid for, and had positions favorable to Putin.

Why would Putin have wanted Trump who had positions on oil production and other stuff that would hurt Russia/Putin?
Click to expand...

This "information" doesn't make sense. Please provide sources of your facts.
 
gusphase said:
I still have yet to see any research showing that bots or fake news have had any significant effect on the election, meanwhile I have found a lot of research showing that it hasn't had a significant impact and the election result would be the same either way. Meanwhile the narrative is that Russia changed the election in the MSM. So isn't that "fake news?" Sure, they don't technically come out and say it directly, but they report certain "facts" in disingenuous ways in order to make it seem like the case.
Click to expand...

You don't think millions of negative stories with over 95% of them focused at attacking Hillary Clinton didn't have an effect on the election? I know 3 computer programmers who fell for Pizzagate. They were then telling their friends that Hillary was running a child pedo ring out of a pizza joint. You don't think that had an effect on the election?

Well of fricking course it did! A few key states were won by less than 1% of the votes. The whole point to the millions and millions of fake annti-Clinton news stories was to turn the election in those battleground states. And I personally know of at least 5 people in my orbit who bought into at least 1 of those fake news stories.
 
spugm1r3 said:
I think the prevailing argument is, not so much that Putin wants Trump, but that Putin wants both discord and a US that looks more inward than out. Trump's personality achieves the former, while his policies serve the latter.
Click to expand...

But you could argue that Hilary's policies would be similarly disruptive with the same results.

I will agree with you on the statement "Putin wants discord", as most of the Russian trolling before the election was just egging on the extremist on both sides. The old divide and conquer strategy.
 
TAP said:
This "information" doesn't make sense. Please provide sources of your facts.
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Try Googling Uranium One, Bill Clinton Russian speech, and Clinton Foundation $145 million.
 
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nutzo said:
Try Googling ...
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If you claim to have supporting evidence available online, but instead of linking to it you say "Look it up yourself," you lose.
Asking someone to "Google it up yourself" clearly means "please please please don't look it up yourself." It's an admission of failure.

But you knew that.
 
keep-calm-and-lets-get-back-to-the-topic.png
 
Jim Kim said:
If you claim to have supporting evidence available online, but instead of linking to it you say "Look it up yourself," you lose.
Asking someone to "Google it up yourself" clearly means "please please please don't look it up yourself." It's an admission of failure.

But you knew that.
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That is blatantly false.

Information provided (by me) can be viewed as biased and false. Much like salesmanship. Do your own research and the information is yours.

I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Fake news sensationalizes a topic for the viewer. Either it confirms what someone believes and they pass it on because it agrees with them. Or it completely offends them, and they pass it along because they want more people to rally and be offended.

This is not some back channel BS. Not some Russian, Enquirer, right winged AM broadcaster or dark web crap either. Academic institutions and previously well respected news outlets are in on the game. It is just recently has come to light how pervasive this is.

My view has shifted. I'm not saying its completely shifted, but it has shifted. Now I believe that the news media's purpose is to make money, and they sell the news to make money. I used to believe the new media's purpose was to give us (me) the news, and they happened to make money in the process.
 
It doesn't really matter what I think. The issue has been studied multiple times. Two studies reveal:

A: the vast majority of fake news is not spread by bots, Russian or otherwise.

B: it is statistically unlikely that fake news impacted the election. As the study I quoted in a comment above shows, "fake news would have to be as effective as 36 campaign adds."

Additionally, for every hashtag supported by "Russian bots" nobody has ever demonstrated that more than a small percentage (Often less than 1%) of the posts associated with those hashtags are coming from Russian bots.

It's not me that you are disagreeing with, but rather Stanford researchers.
 
Liver said:
That is blatantly false.

Information provided (by me) can be viewed as biased and false. Much like salesmanship. Do your own research and the information is yours.

I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Fake news sensationalizes a topic for the viewer. Either it confirms what someone believes and they pass it on because it agrees with them. Or it completely offends them, and they pass it along because they want more people to rally and be offended.

This is not some back channel BS. Not some Russian, Enquirer, right winged AM broadcaster or dark web crap either. Academic institutions and previously well respected news outlets are in on the game. It is just recently has come to light how pervasive this is.

My view has shifted. I'm not saying its completely shifted, but it has shifted. Now I believe that the news media's purpose is to make money, and they sell the news to make money. I used to believe the new media's purpose was to give us (me) the news, and they happened to make money in the process.
Click to expand...

So now you know that the goal of all media left or right is to make money. Yay. That doesn't change the truth or facts. Facts are universal in that there is no bias to them. For example, a friend of mine forwarded on a fake news article that Clinton masterminded the Benghazi attacks. Bias means Jack shit here because there are zero facts to support this other than some weird web page pretending to be legitimate news that I've never heard of. That web page is now gone but the guy who shared this fake news article from a fake news site has over 1000 friends on Facebook. He just spread a giant lie to a thousand people and the only "facts" he had was it came from this strange pro-conservative web site that popped up 2 months before the election and disappeared days afterwards.
 
gusphase said:
It doesn't really matter what I think. The issue has been studied multiple times. Two studies reveal:

A: the vast majority of fake news is not spread by bots, Russian or otherwise.

B: it is statistically unlikely that fake news impacted the election. As the study I quoted in a comment above shows, "fake news would have to be as effective as 36 campaign adds."

Additionally, for every hashtag supported by "Russian bots" nobody has ever demonstrated that more than a small percentage (Often less than 1%) of the posts associated with those hashtags are coming from Russian bots.

It's not me that you are disagreeing with, but rather Stanford researchers.
Click to expand...

I saw it on Facebook everyday. Thousands of stories relentlessly attacking one candidate with crazy shit from running a pedo ring to being the antichrist to her being on anti-schizophrenia drugs. I saw people conversing about the drugs she takes to combat her bipolar disorder. And when I asked how they knew she was bipolar, they would say look it up it's all over the internet! The ratio of fake news of Clinton:trump was 10:1 at a minimum. Of course it affected the election!
 
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