Emotions explain differences in the diffusion of true vs. false social media rumors.

ABSTRACT: False rumors (often termed "fake news") on social media pose a significant threat to modern societies. However, potential reasons for the widespread diffusion of false rumors have been underexplored. In this work, we analyze whether sentiment words, as well as different emotional words, in social media content explain differences in the spread of true vs. false rumors. For this purpose, we collected [Formula: see text] rumor cascades from Twitter, comprising more than 4.5 million retweets that have been fact-checked for veracity. We then categorized the language in social media content to (1) sentiment (i.e., positive vs. negative) and (2) eight basic emotions (i. e., anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, trust, sadness, and surprise). We find that sentiment and basic emotions explain d

SUBMITTER: Prollochs N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8608927 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature