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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.
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]
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:29PM (15 children)
A match for your strawman: the list of junk news sources and examples of fake news stories starts at page 6 of the FA's Online Supplement [ox.ac.uk].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:49PM (9 children)
I'll note that they're missing some sources of fake news with that criteria. For a notorious example [newscientist.com] from last decade:
[...]
This got into the IPCC chapter via a white paper [soylentnews.org] from the World Wildlife Fund (which let us note, checked off the boxes for fake news).
(Score: 4, Funny) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:05PM (8 children)
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
(Score: 0, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:20PM (6 children)
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
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)
"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)
apparently [thehill.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:20PM (2 children)
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)
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
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
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.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:51PM (4 children)
Fine. I read the main PDF and not the site and there wasn't really any mention of the supplemental information. Even after having read the supplemental pages it kind of just enforces my point -- more or less all the news they classify as "junk news" are heavily slanted. Have you read their examples? They apparently can't find any or very little junk news from either side, perhaps it's the case that there is no junk news from one side but I seriously doubt that. So it once again comes down to this being a selection of news to fit some somewhat vague criteria of theirs.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:03PM (2 children)
If by "I read" you mean "I skimmed", then I believe you.
Otherwise, the
references the Online Supplement many times over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Thursday February 08 2018, @03:45PM (1 child)
OK... let me try to help looorg make his (or at least, my...) point.
I skimmed the paper and there's no examples of categorized data which would help analyze the trustworthiness of the supposed analysis.
One example is the numerous, some possibly fake photoshopped, legacy media (newspaper, magazine) covers claiming Hillary has 99% odds to win, to demoralize the Trump supporters into not voting and meme the result into existence. LOL that didn't work so well did it?
For another example the leftist chanting has never stopped nor slowed down in the last year that Trump is Literally Hitler and Trump Cooperated With The Russians Because Hitler and The Russians Historically Had a Such a Romantic Bromance. Now is that false news or propaganda or laughably call it the truth with a straight face or not counted?
Or a VERY concrete example, a day or two below the election I reposted a semi-famous meme "Trump Voters Go To the Polls / Hillary Voters Go To the Polls" and the Trump side was the usual mismash of extremely alpha male road warrior car chase with warhammer 40K god emperor stuff, and the Hillary side was a nude submissive obviously very low-T male wearing a dog leash and a dildo and not much else, being walked on four legs down the street by a fat female dominatrix with a whip presumably a typical street scene in SF or LA or at DNC/Antifa/LegacyMedia (as if there's any difference or separation) board room meetings but a bit unusual in the civilized world. Now my question is, was that meme:
1) Fake News falsely showing non voters or at least falsely implying either the submissive male or the W40K/Road Warrior cosplayers were entering or exiting a voting facility
2) Totally F-ing hilarious laugh out loud slightly slanted propaganda meme from my pals on /pol/
Its kind of important when analyzing the quality of academic political bias, which as we know has a history of incredible left wing extremism, so it would be very unwise to trust out of hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:38AM
God DAMN you're a loon. You'd recently seemed to tone it down, but I guess all you needed was a paper showing your inherent insanity to really set you off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:44PM
What do you mean by the word "side" ?