Researchers looked at around 126,000 tweets shared by Twitter users from 2006 to 2017 — containing true, false, or partially false claims — and measured how those tweets spread across the social network. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)

Fake news travels faster study finds

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I found this short text reading Stephen Downes blog post here. I recommend the sources he has listed here. That is why I have just copied the article in full below. Interesting that fake news spreads faster than real news. But when you think about it, it is not too surprising.

Reports of this study on the spread of fake news are all over the media today. There are several major threads (and it’s interesting to see which news outlet points to which). First, humans, rather than robots, are the ones that really spread fake news. Second, fake news spreads much more quickly than real news. Third, it reaches more people than real news. Why? ” We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust.” More: New Scientist, Vox, Gizmodo, The Atlantic, USA Today, BBC, Reuters.

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