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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, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 08 2018, @08:27PM (3 children)
It seems to me it's mostly the right that gets, well, triggered easily. I mean, hell, look at them trying to undermine our entire secular nation-state's basis in order not to have their feelings hurt by seeing people who think/believe/love/whatever differently than they do actually living their lives. They project a helluva lot too. I don't know anything even close to the John Birch society on the left.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:38PM
If you were to conveniently overlook every single left wing advocacy and protest group then you would have a point.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @12:39AM
Hmm, while I agree that conservatives are more easily upset in general there are quite a few liberal groups pushing agendas. Care to elaborate a little more? How is PETA not a liberal version of John Birch?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday February 09 2018, @06:03AM
Well the Center-Right (aka Democrats) are doing their darndest to start a new cold war with the potential for global thermonuclear destruction with Russsia, so let's not give the Right all the credit.