Dataset Information

The limited reach of fake news on Twitter during 2019 European elections.

ABSTRACT: The advent of social media changed the way we consume content, favoring a disintermediated access to, and production of information. This scenario has been matter of critical discussion about its impact on society, magnified in the case of the Arab Springs or heavily criticized during Brexit and the 2016 U.S. elections. In this work we explore information consumption on Twitter during the 2019 European Parliament electoral campaign by analyzing the interaction patterns of official news outlets, disinformation outlets, politicians, people from the showbiz and many others. We extensively explore interactions among different classes of accounts in the months preceding the elections, held between 23rd and 26th of May, 2019. We collected almost 400,000 tweets posted by 863 accounts having different roles in the public society. Through a thorough quantitative analysis we investigate the information flow among them, also exploiting geolocalized information. Accounts show the tendency to confine their interaction within the same class and the debate rarely crosses national borders. Moreover, we do not find evidence of an organized network of accounts aimed at spreading disinformation. Instead, disinformation outlets are largely ignored by the other actors and hence play a peripheral role in online political discussions.

SUBMITTER: Cinelli M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7302448 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The limited reach of fake news on Twitter during 2019 European elections.

Cinelli Matteo M Cresci Stefano S Galeazzi Alessandro A Quattrociocchi Walter W Tesconi Maurizio M

PloS one 20200618 6

The advent of social media changed the way we consume content, favoring a disintermediated access to, and production of information. This scenario has been matter of critical discussion about its impact on society, magnified in the case of the Arab Springs or heavily criticized during Brexit and the 2016 U.S. elections. In this work we explore information consumption on Twitter during the 2019 European Parliament electoral campaign by analyzing the interaction patterns of official news outlets, ...[more]

PMID: 32555659

Similar Datasets

Project description:Accessing information online is now easier than ever. However, also false information is circulated in increasing quantities. We sought to identify social psychological factors that could explain why some people are more susceptible to false information. Specifically, we investigated whether psychological predispositions (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, system justification beliefs (SJB), openness, need for closure, conspiracy mentality), competencies (scientific and political knowledge, interest in politics) or motivated reasoning based on social identity (political orientation) could help explain who believes fake news. Hungarian participants (N = 295) judged political (anti- and pro-government) and non-political news. The Hungarian context-characterized by low trust in media, populist communication by the government and increasing polarization-should be fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news. The context in making this case particularly interesting is that the major political fault line in Hungary runs between pro- and anti-government supporter groups and not, for instance, between conservative and liberal ideology or partisanship. We found clear support for the motivational reasoning explanation as political orientation consistently predicted belief in both fake and real political news when their contents aligned with one's political identity. The belief in pro-government news was also associated with higher SJB among pro-government supporters. Those interested in politics showed better capacity to distinguish real political news from the fake ones. Most importantly, the only psychological predisposition that consistently explained belief in all types of fake news was a conspiracy mentality. This supports the notion of ideological symmetry in fake news belief-where a conspiracy mentality can be found across the political spectrum, and it can make people susceptible to disinformation regardless of group-memberships and other individual differences.

Project description:Disinformation (fake news) is a major problem that affects modern populations, especially in an era when information can be spread from one corner of the world to another in just one click. The diffusion of misinformation becomes more problematic when it addresses issues related to health, as it can affect people at both the individual and population levels. Through the ideas proposed by cultural evolution theory, in this study, we seek to understand the dynamics of disseminating messages (cultural traits) with untrue content (maladaptive traits). For our investigation, we used the scenario caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as a model. The instability caused by the pandemic provides a good model for the study of adapted and maladaptive traits, as the information can directly affect individual and population fitness. Through data collected on the Twitter platform (259,176 tweets) and using machine learning techniques and web scraping, we built a predictive model to analyze the following questions: (1) Is false information more shared? (2) Is false information more adopted? (3) Do people with social prestige influence the dissemination of maladaptive traits of COVID-19? We observed that fake news features contained in messages with false information were shared and adopted as unblemished messages. We also observed that social prestige was not a determining factor for the diffusion of maladaptive traits. Even with the ability to allow connections between individuals participating in social media, some factors such as attachment to cultural traits and the formation of social bubbles can favor isolation and decrease connectivity between individuals. Consequently, in the scenario of isolation between groups and low connectivity between individuals, there is a reduction in cultural exchange between people, which interferes with the dynamics of the selection of cultural traits. Thus, maladaptive (harmful) traits are favored and maintained in the cultural system. We also argue that the local Brazilian cultural context can be a determining factor for maintaining maladaptive traits. We conclude that in an unstable (pandemic) scenario, the information transmitted on Twitter is not reliable in relation to the increase in fitness, which may occur because of the low cultural exchange promoted by the personalization of the social network and cultural context of the population.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42979-021-00836-w.

Project description:BackgroundProliferation of misinformation in digital news environments can harm society in a number of ways, but its dangers are most acute when citizens believe that false news is factually accurate. A recent wave of empirical research focuses on factors that explain why people fall for the so-called fake news. In this scoping review, we summarize the results of experimental studies that test different predictors of individuals' belief in misinformation.MethodsThe review is based on a synthetic analysis of 26 scholarly articles. The authors developed and applied a search protocol to two academic databases, Scopus and Web of Science. The sample included experimental studies that test factors influencing users' ability to recognize fake news, their likelihood to trust it or intention to engage with such content. Relying on scoping review methodology, the authors then collated and summarized the available evidence.ResultsThe study identifies three broad groups of factors contributing to individuals' belief in fake news. Firstly, message characteristics-such as belief consistency and presentation cues-can drive people's belief in misinformation. Secondly, susceptibility to fake news can be determined by individual factors including people's cognitive styles, predispositions, and differences in news and information literacy. Finally, accuracy-promoting interventions such as warnings or nudges priming individuals to think about information veracity can impact judgements about fake news credibility. Evidence suggests that inoculation-type interventions can be both scalable and effective. We note that study results could be partly driven by design choices such as selection of stimuli and outcome measurement.ConclusionsWe call for expanding the scope and diversifying designs of empirical investigations of people's susceptibility to false information online. We recommend examining digital platforms beyond Facebook, using more diverse formats of stimulus material and adding a comparative angle to fake news research.

Dataset Information

The limited reach of fake news on Twitter during 2019 European elections.

Publications

The limited reach of fake news on Twitter during 2019 European elections.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets