Fake News Explosion Near End of Election
December 5, 2016 1:00 PM Subscribe
In the last three months of the election, fake news stories got more Facebook engagements than the legitimate news outlets. While Pizzagate has quickly become the most high-profile example of fake news going seriously wrong, it is part of a much broader problem with fake news that has quickly become widely recognized in the aftermath of the 2016 election.
Here’s one example of just how widespread fake news is: Over at BuzzFeed, Craig Silverman pit Facebook engagement for the top 20 fake news stories — like “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” (he did not) and “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment in murder-suicide” (this did not happen) — against the top 20 legitimate news stories, from outlets like the New York Times and Huffington Post.
Here’s one example of just how widespread fake news is: Over at BuzzFeed, Craig Silverman pit Facebook engagement for the top 20 fake news stories — like “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” (he did not) and “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment in murder-suicide” (this did not happen) — against the top 20 legitimate news stories, from outlets like the New York Times and Huffington Post.
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is of a piece with a lot of stuff that's been discussed in a few recent threads, probably better as a link in e.g. this or this. -- cortex
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posted by xammerboy at 1:04 PM on December 5, 2016