Humans, not bots, drive the faster spread of false political news
Evidence
In total, falsehoods were 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than true claims. This was particularly the case for political fake news, which proved most popular as a category (compared to other news, such as finance or natural disasters) and peaked around the time of the 2016 US presidential election. Using a bot detection algorithm, the MIT researchers also reran the analyses excluding cascades started by bots (automated accounts). Importantly, the results remained the same, suggesting that humans (not bots) are more likely to spread the misinformation ‘virus’. An analysis of the text used in the tweets suggested that falsehoods tend to diffuse faster because they appear more ‘novel’ and often inspire negative emotions such as fear. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 347
Categorization
- QUESTION: The novelty-and-fear mechanism claim is worth probing — what does ‘novel’ mean and is fear a driver or a correlate?
- XREF: connects to: Bots manufactured roughly 20 percent of pre-election political conversation — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 81; False news reached more people than truth on Twitter, driven by human sharing. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 346; Deliberate misinformation weaponized for profit or power can outcompete true news — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 218 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- False news reached more people than truth on Twitter, driven by human sharing.
#corroborates(0.90) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 346 - Urgency, group pressure, and inattention predict fake-news sharing
#expands(0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 325 - Fake news outperformed reputable news in social media engagement in 2016
#corroborates(0.80) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 18 - Deliberate misinformation weaponized for profit or power can outcompete true news
#qualifies(0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 218