Misinformation on Facebook got 6x more clicks than factual news during election

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/03/facebook-misinformation-nyu-study/

by hoppyhoppy2 • 5 years ago

26 17 5 years ago

mikece• 5 years ago

We all want to be privy to knowledge that is not widely known, even hidden. It should come as no surprise that info that carries an air of "you're not going to see this on the mainstream!" will have an appeal. Heck, that's why I read HN first thing in the morning is because I'm going to see new here long before it shows up elsewhere, along with links to stories/tech you're just not going to find anywhere else. If Facebook it making people believe they have the Forbidden Fruit there's going to be a line of people demanding to have a bite.

zadokshi• 5 years ago

Isn't it already common knowledge that Right leaning readers are moving away from mainstream left wing leaning news sources. The rise of Brietbart, and similar sites that fact checkers dislike is hardly a surprise is it not? (Or is it? seriously, I would like to know, are people surprised that right wing sources are increasing in the wake of Trump?)

smolder3• 5 years ago

The surprising part is the extent to which right wing news like what comes out of Murdoch's companies has become a vehicle for dissemination of obvious falsehoods --paranoid nonsense inconsistent with any evidence. Long ago, I used to think right wing politics were fundamentally rational and just carried a different view on how best to govern versus the left's. Nowadays I see little appeal to rationality, and a great deal of trust-destroying, desperately contrarian fiction masquerading as insight. Left wing sources have gotten worse, too, but don't seem as keen on making things up.

glanard_frugner3• 5 years ago

examples?

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

This reminds me of the Gladiator movie scene after the first death in the colosseum “Are you not entertained!!”

The grotesque disinformation internet is a mirror of our humanity.

chuckee• 5 years ago

While the article is easy to believe, I'd prefer it was phrased more precisely. For example:

news publishers known for putting out misinformation got six times the amount of likes, shares, and interactions on the platform as did trustworthy news sources

If a publisher is known for putting out misinformation (and what is the threshold?), that does not mean all their stories are false. To make the claim in the title, the shared articles would have to be individually evaluated for truthfulness.

The second thing that stuck out to me (emphasis mine):

The researchers also found that the statistically significant misinformation boost is politically neutral — misinformation-trafficking pages on both the far left and the far right generated much more engagement from Facebook users than factual pages of any political slant. But publishers on the right have a much higher propensity to share misleading information than publishers in other political categories, the study found.

The paragraph switches from talking about misinformation (which I understand to be information that is false), to misleading information, which is a far more vague categorization. Notably, any kind of disfavored statistic, that is grudgingly conceded to be factual, tends to be called "misleading", either for failing to adjust for enough factors, or for implying some cause or conspiracy, or for measuring something you shouldn't care about in the first place.

suifbwish• 5 years ago

Even though I know it is the case it never fails to shock me how naive and unquestioning people are when they read something. It’s like they feel the act of them reading it makes it likely to be true.

If people then question or doubt it when the person just repeats it they get angry when it’s they that should have done that

egberts1• 5 years ago

I gravitate toward news articles with meaningful citation hyperlink(s) and not links that points to just its definition, or worse points to similarly but not related articles within their own web site.

glanard_frugner3• 5 years ago

“misinformation”

ratsmack• 5 years ago

As defined by the ministry of truth, I presume.

rezbull• 5 years ago

Seems like misinformation pays

krsdcbl• 5 years ago

So basically facebook is saying it's bo biggie that people mostly click & watch disinformation because they do scroll past a lot more memes ...

Misinformation on Facebook got 6x more clicks than factual news during election

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