A few take-home points on this big study on Twitter and fake news 1. It doesn't mean the majority, or even a sizable portion of the content you read on Twitter is fakehttps://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/8/17085928/fake-news-study-mit-science …
-
-
4. That said, this isn't the final word on if fake news actually travels faster on twitter than real news. The researchers say this. It's really hard to say what the fake news stories in this study should be compared to.
Show this thread -
Because there's so much true news. It's very very hard to perfectly conclude that fake news is going to spread faster and farther than true. Cause it's just hard to compare to all the type of true news out there.
Show this thread -
5. Another interesting tidbit: Bots don't favor true news or false news. In sum, they promote both at equal rates.
Show this thread -
And finally, 6) I'm left wondering if Twitter can really solve this problem. Fake news is so pernicious because it so perfectly hits our biases. And if twitter wants users to engage and share information ... people are going to end up sharing this stuff, regardless of intent
Show this thread -
New conversation -
-
-
agreed--it's not so surprising that stories that don't have to be constrained by reality are more engaging than ones that do. if you yell "fire!" in a theater, people are more likely to stampede for the door than if you yell "the door's over there in case you want to leave."
-
yeah, and that type of thing is always going to spread. Which makes me think more that social media is always going to be a place with mis-truths spread. And there's only so much "fixing" of this problem
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.