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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

 
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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:48PM (7 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:48PM (#635263) Journal
    Here's my rebuttal [soylentnews.org] to this whole mess. TL;DR is that the researchers used methods with serious problems, have conflicts of interest, and present their research in a very partisan way yet I need to show "evidence" that the research is flawed for free.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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       Troll=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   0  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:04PM (5 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:04PM (#635267) Journal

    Shut up, khallow. Listen to much wiser men who have gone before you.

    "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

    Laplace [rationalwiki.org]

    You have only asserted these things, due to a delusional mind. None of them are true. You just believe them. The rest of Soyentildom has grown tired of your constant ideological foaming at the mouth. Pay up, or shut up.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:40PM (4 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:40PM (#635283) Journal

      You have only asserted these things, due to a delusional mind.

      Rather than be an idiot, read my post that I linked. There's a reason I didn't make a substantial reply in my previous post.

      None of them are true.

      "None"? I bet my assertions about the funding for the group behind this research has a greater likelihood of being true than that assertion does.

      You just believe them. The rest of Soyentildom has grown tired of your constant ideological foaming at the mouth. Pay up, or shut up.

      I like this more assertive aristarchus. Now, just think on top of that. You should be doing pretty well, if you can manage that.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday February 09 2018, @12:01AM (3 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Friday February 09 2018, @12:01AM (#635296) Journal

        I bet my assertions about the funding for the group behind this research has a greater likelihood of being true than that assertion does.

        Bet it doesn't! Yeah, where does that leave us? You are not helping your case, khallow. We are all pulling for you, and trying to get you to realize that you are just embarrassing yourself. You have nothing but conservative conspiracy wishful thinking behind your accusations, made obvious by your refusal to provide even the slightest evidence for them. So my dear and fluffy khallow, please desist before you make an even bigger ass out of yourself.

        • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday February 09 2018, @12:25AM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 09 2018, @12:25AM (#635308) Journal

          Bet it doesn't!

          Source is here [europa.eu]. Did make a whoops. It was Euros not British pounds. That'll save some money (Pound is about 14% more than the Euro).

          You have nothing but conservative conspiracy wishful thinking behind your accusations, made obvious by your refusal to provide even the slightest evidence for them.

          Fortunately, one can read my posts and see for themselves. I suggest instead of continuing this vapid assault, you just read my most substantial criticism [soylentnews.org] of the research. I recognize most of my writing was not very informative or well thought out with some error, but that post is my best argument to date.

          • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @12:57AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @12:57AM (#635322)

            OMG get these commie bastards out of here, how dare SN publish an article funded by CORDIS!!!

            CORDIS is the Community Research and Development Information Service.

            It is the European Commission's primary public repository and portal to disseminate information on all EU-funded research projects and their results in the broadest sense.

            The website and repository include all public information held by the Commission (project factsheets, publishable reports and deliverables), editorial content to support communication and exploitation (news, events, success stories, magazines, multilingual "results in brief" for the broader public) and comprehensive links to external sources such as open access publications and websites.

            Such a bastion of liberal horror! /s

            While I do think the study needs to be taken with a big grain of salt your accusations are pretty baseless and obviously a result of being triggered by this topic. QED? lol

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:08AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:08AM (#636937) Journal
              The obvious rebuttal is that the EU's very existence is at stake and they are funding research which suspiciously smells like propaganda to defend themselves.

              Brexit took away an important member of the EU. Far right groups are throughout the EU (with the potential to cause either breakups of existing states or additional Brexit votes. Meanwhile on the US side, the Trump election gave many of those European far right groups credibility. Now, we see the EU funding research which portrays the alt-right (the US flavor of the far right) as a bunch of gullible dupes. What a coincidence!

              Needless to say, I don't buy that this is a coincidence, but rather part of some overall strategy for discrediting political threats to the EU.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:25PM (#635631)

    Here's my rebuttal [urbandictionary.com] to all of you! Jolly good show!

    I cannot believe the mods went for it... Sad!