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First Evidence That Social Bots Play a Major Role In Spreading Fake News (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from Indiana University in Bloomington provide an answer for how social bots play a major role in spreading fake news. MIT Technology Review reports: "At issue is the publication of news that is false or misleading. So widespread has this become that a number of independent fact-checking organizations have emerged to establish the veracity of online information. These include snopes.com, politifact.com, and factcheck.org. These sites list 122 websites that routinely publish fake news. These fake news sites include infowars.com, breitbart.com, politicususa.com, and theonion.com. 'We did not exclude satire because many fake-news sources label their content as satirical, making the distinction problematic,' say researcher Chengcheng Shao and co. Shao and co then monitored some 400,000 claims made by these websites and studied the way they spread through Twitter. They did this by collecting some 14 million Twitter posts that mentioned these claims. At the same time, the team monitored some 15,000 stories written by fact-checking organizations and over a million Twitter posts that mention them. Next, Shao and co looked at the Twitter accounts that spread this news, collecting up to 200 of each account's most recent tweets. In this way, the team could study the tweeting behavior and work out whether the accounts were most likely run by humans or by bots. Having made a judgment on the ownership of each account, the team finally looked at the way humans and bots spread fake news and fact-checked news.
'Accounts that actively spread misinformation are significantly more likely to be bots,' say Shao and co. 'Social bots play a key role in the spread of fake news.' Shad and co say bots play a particularly significant role in the spread of fake news soon after it is published. What's more, these bots are programmed to direct their tweets at influential users. 'Automated accounts are particularly active in the early spreading phases of viral claims, and tend to target influential users,' say Shao and co."
'Accounts that actively spread misinformation are significantly more likely to be bots,' say Shao and co. 'Social bots play a key role in the spread of fake news.' Shad and co say bots play a particularly significant role in the spread of fake news soon after it is published. What's more, these bots are programmed to direct their tweets at influential users. 'Automated accounts are particularly active in the early spreading phases of viral claims, and tend to target influential users,' say Shao and co."
Can someone link to a Breitbart article that's actually fake news?
From what I've read, their reporting is very tight, usually with references to whatever it is they're talking about.
Yes, they have a conservative bias, but bias is not the same thing as fake.
lol
Did they include MSM sites like nytimes.com, cnn.com, washingtonpost.com, msnbc.com? They have their fair share of fake news.
Slashdot has lost it a few years ago when it was overrun not with conservatives (nothing against them) but first with hordes of Putinbots and then with absolutely retarded alt-right followers who want to push their bizarre agenda. People who are full of hatred and don't give a shit about reality at all. These posters have successfully destroyed /. Talking about the political spectrum, it used to play no role and there also used to be many reasonable and well educated conservatives on this site, say 10-15 years ago, but most of them are long gone. I don't know what happened to them, maybe some of them got polarized and radicalized by recent US politics so much that they are no longer recognizable. US lefties have become more radical, too, of course, and these political 'debates' have become so vitriolic, they are no longer bearable for people outside the US. Let me assure you that nobody outside the US gives a shit about your president or your religious fanatism.
What's going on on /. is just a mirror of what's going on in the US in general, but at least for /. my outlook is bleak. Strictly banning all political topics might help, but frankly speaking it would be best to close down the site. The current user demographics is no longer suitable for a tech-related site driven by user-submissions. I won't tell anyone here which other forums I use, for fear of attracting the trolls to them. Suffices to say that there are way better places nowadays than /.
The list of 'fake news' sites should have included Slashdot, CNN, and MSNBC. Snopes is not trustworthy either.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he