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The Diffusion and Reach of (Mis)Information on Facebook During the U.S. 2020 Election

Sociological Science, ISSN: 2330-6696, Vol: 11, Page: 1124-1146
2024
  • 0
    Citations
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    Usage
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    Captures
  • 3
    Mentions
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    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Mentions
    3
    • News Mentions
      3
      • 3

Most Recent News

New Social Science Study Findings Have Been Reported by Researchers at University of Pennsylvania [The Diffusion and Reach of (Mis)Information on Facebook during the U.S. 2020 Election]

2024 DEC 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Ivy League Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on social science. According

Article Description

Social media creates the possibility for rapid, viral spread of content, but how many posts actually reach millions? And is misinformation special in how it propagates? We answer these questions by analyzing the virality of and exposure to information on Facebook during the U.S. 2020 presidential election. We examine the diffusion trees of the approximately 1 B posts that were re-shared at least once by U.S.-based adults from July 1, 2020, to February 1, 2021. We differentiate misinformation from non-misinformation posts to show that (1) misinformation diffused more slowly, relying on a small number of active users that spread misinformation via long chains of peer-to-peer diffusion that reached millions; non-misinformation spread primarily through one-to-many affordances (mainly, Pages); (2) the relative importance of peer-to-peer spread for misinformation was likely due to an enforcement gap in content moderation policies designed to target mostly Pages and Groups; and (3) periods of aggressive content moderation proximate to the election coincide with dramatic drops in the spread and reach of misinformation and (to a lesser extent) political content.

Bibliographic Details

Sandra González-Bailón; Deen Freelon; David Lazer; Pablo Barberá; William Godel; Taylor Brown; Adriana Crespo-Tenorio; Devra Moehler; Carlos Velasco Rivera; Arjun Wilkins; Chad Kiewiet de Jonge; Annie Franco; Winter Mason; Hunt Allcott; Matthew Gentzkow; Shanto Iyengar; Neil Malhotra; Jennifer Pan; Andrew M. Guess; Young Mie Kim; Brendan Nyhan; Jaime Settle; Emily Thorson; Rebekah Tromble; Magdalena Wojcieszak; Natalie Jomini Stroud; Joshua A. Tucker

Society for Sociological Science

Social Sciences

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