“Fake news” and misinformation peak online during presidential election years. Experts look at how they spread and what can be done to stop them.
False information has become a feature of social media — especially during election years. Research shows false news peaked on Twitter during the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections , and a bipartisan Senate committee found that before and after the 2016 election, the Russian government used Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to spread false information and conspiracy theories and stoke divisions.
Over the last several years, MIT Sloan researchers have studied the spread of false information, or so-called fake news, described by researchers as “entirely fabricated and often partisan content presented as factual.” Understanding more about why people share misinformation, and how it spreads, leads to proposed solutions — a goal that becomes more important as people spend more time on social media platforms, and the connections between misinformation and election results become clearer.
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Source: MIT Sloan research about social media, misinformation, and elections | MIT Sloan
