Untrue claims and messages spread to a study according to Twitter much faster and reach more people than true information. This is result of a team of researchers at Sinan Aral from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The results of study entitled dissemination of true and False online news were published in journal Science.
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For largest long-term study of its kind so far, team investigated spread of 126,000 English-language stories. These were tweeted by three million people over 4.5 million times in years 2006 to 2017. Independent Faktencheckers reviewed stories in an elaborate process on ir veracity before ir redistribution was investigated by researchers. The team received support from Twitter: The company had team access its data. One of involved researchers, Deb Roy, worked for company from 2013 to 2017.
The investigation shows that an untrue content has a 70 percent higher probability of being disseminated by users. Wher this was intentional or not was not included in investigation.
According to research team, untrue content was disseminated in all branches and in all forms: it concerned topics ranging from politics to entertainment, images as well as statements or links to an original article. Political issues, however, were by far most frequently affected, researchers write. Moreover, rapid-ball effect was particularly strong in US campaign years 2012 and 2016. This constantly increasing chain reaction has also increased overall over years, researchers write.
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At a clear distance from political issues are also tweets or retweets to modern myths, so-called urban legends, and again with clear distance tweets with untrue content from fields of business, terrorism, science, entertainment and have been affected by natural disasters.
Untrue looks more exciting
In a furr step, researchers wanted to know why untrue content was spreading faster and furr. They came to a simple answer: “Because we like something new.” Untrue content evoked or emotions among users. So y would have been more exciting and innovative to Twitter users, write authors. The users would have shown surprise, fear and disgust. True news, on or hand, caused a lot of sad reactions, but also anticipation and trust.
According to scientists, users of social networks with hirto unknown (but untrue) messages could also draw attention to mselves. Such users had impression of being in picture, said Sinan Aral, an author of study.
People spread more falsehoods than bots
The researchers also investigated influence of bots – which automatically set off tweets and were often programmed to spread falsehoods. They came to conclusion that although y drive proliferation of falsehoods, y are not decisive: “Human behavior contributes more to different propagation of incorrect and truth than automated robots”, writes Researchers. This should also be kept in mind when tackling this trend.
The political scientist David Lazer from Norastern University and several or colleagues in a science-related article doubt wher fight against rapid spread of falsehoods can succeed alone through fact checks. Many people simply prefer information that confirms ir existing perspectives.
The experts refore particularly regard providers of social media as a duty. “The platforms could provide consumers with clues to quality of sources.” You could also filter out activities of bots from so-called trending mes. Despite first such approaches, Facebook, Twitter and or networks should collaborate with independent experts, researchers recommend.
