Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-right-wing-thing dept.

Fake News Sharing in US is a Right-Wing Thing, Says Study

A study by researchers at Oxford University concluded that sharing fake and junk news is much more prevalent amongst Trump supporters and other people with hard right-wing tendencies.

From the Guardian:

The study, from the university's "computational propaganda project", looked at the most significant sources of "junk news" shared in the three months leading up to Donald Trump's first State of the Union address this January, and tried to find out who was sharing them and why.

"On Twitter, a network of Trump supporters consumes the largest volume of junk news, and junk news is the largest proportion of news links they share," the researchers concluded. On Facebook, the skew was even greater. There, "extreme hard right pages – distinct from Republican pages – share more junk news than all the other audiences put together.

Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption over Social Media in the US

What kinds of social media users read junk news? We examine the distribution of the most significant sources of junk news in the three months before President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address. Drawing on a list of sources that consistently publish political news and information that is extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial, masked commentary, fake news and other forms of junk news, we find that the distribution of such content is unevenly spread across the ideological spectrum. We demonstrate that (1) on Twitter, a network of Trump supporters shares the widest range of known junk news sources and circulates more junk news than all the other groups put together; (2) on Facebook, extreme hard right pages—distinct from Republican pages—share the widest range of known junk news sources and circulate more junk news than all the other audiences put together; (3) on average, the audiences for junk news on Twitter share a wider range of known junk news sources than audiences on Facebook's public pages.

http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/polarization-partisanship-and-junk-news/

[Ed. note: page is loading very slowly; try a direct link to the actual report (pdf). --martyb]


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:05PM (8 children)

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:05PM (#634868) Homepage Journal

    Where is the "match" in that? Sure, they provide a list, but what makes you think it's related to their stated criteria?

    You have been provided with the data and the methodology. Please let us know how and where in their analysis they've skewed the results.

    We're all very excited that you're attempting to replicate the results of this study. You go, girlfriend!

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Funny=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:20PM (6 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:20PM (#634880) Journal

    You have been provided with the data and the methodology. Please let us know how and where in their analysis they've skewed the results.

    The data indicates that they may well have skewed the results as does the conclusions.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:32PM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:32PM (#634894) Homepage Journal

      The data indicates that they may well have skewed the results as does the conclusions

      That's just hand waving. Which data? what results are skewed?

      You made a claim. back it up. Or you're clearly talking out of your ass.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 08 2018, @08:30PM (4 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday February 08 2018, @08:30PM (#635177) Journal

      "Results you don't like" != skewed methods and/or conclusions.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:36PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:36PM (#635252)

        "Results you don't like" == Russian collusion

        apparently [thehill.com]

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:20PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:20PM (#635279)

          Do you happen to be a farmer? I'm just curious where you're getting so much straw!

          • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:42PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:42PM (#635286)

            Radical leftists use it to pad out the skull where the parts of the brain responsible for self awareness are in the rest of us.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @12:50AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @12:50AM (#635320)

              Ah, so just a moron who doesn't understand what a strawman argument is or why the comparison used is flawed. Hmmm.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 09 2018, @12:10AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 09 2018, @12:10AM (#635300) Journal

    You have been provided with the data and the methodology.

    Let us note that we have not been provided with the raw data, but rather heavily processed, high level data. So no, we haven't been provided with "the data". And as I noted, the methodology is fundamentally flawed due to the subjectivity of the "coders" who decide what is "junk news". I since have looked for indications that they addressed the problems in their methodology. I didn't find anything in either the research paper or the online supplement. It's not an onerous burden to devote some portion of the write up to such an important issue.

    Finally, there is a second serious flaw in the methodology in that they do not consider the impact of automation of fake news propagation. Would the "Right" still be the most promiscuous without the apparent flood of Russian fake news spread by shill accounts? The time frame in question would contain at least part of the peak period of fake news creation.