Fake news exposure in 2016 probably could not swing election results

Evidence

Allcott and Gentzkow do confirm that most fake news was indeed pro-Trump in its orientation and more likely to reach people via social media. However, they do not think that these facts necessarily mean that fake news had the ability to meaningfully interfere with the election. On the contrary, based on their estimates, exposure to fake news couldn’t have amounted to much during the 2016 presidential election. For example, they reason that a single exposure to the most persuasive political campaign ads on TV have been shown to influence vote shares by only about 0.02 per cent. Assuming that exposure to a single fake news article is as persuasive as a TV ad, that’s not enough to swing an election in key states, not even close. Other studies have corroborated these findings by analysing people’s browser data during the final weeks of the 2016 election, estimating that just under half of American adults visited about one untrustworthy website. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 520

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses or complicates the common narrative that fake news swung the 2016 election; connects to filter-bubble scholarship discussed in prior chapter. — connects to: Scientists doubt fake news directly changes voter choices — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 511; Average US adult saw only about three fake news pages during the 2016 election — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 517; Multi-platform exposure could mean daily fake news contact for average voters — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 526 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Multi-platform exposure could mean daily fake news contact for average voters #contradicts (0.78) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 526
• Belief in just two of three viral fake headlines predicted defection for 2016 voters #contradicts (0.75) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 528
• Americans in 2016 each read roughly three fake news stories in the election build-up #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1611