Curated Misinformation: Liking Facebook Pages for Fake News Sites

Facebook was a major conduit to fake news exposure during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. This article explores factors that predict liking pages for “fake news” websites on the Facebook platform. Leveraging paired survey and digital trace data from 806 American Facebook users, we determine that 18.4% of subjects liked at least one page for a website that published fake news. A substantial share of fake news page likes (23.9%) came from lifestyle sites that also published misinformation. Regression analyses determine that age, male sex, Trump support, and political participation are associated with liking fake news pages. A network analysis based on audience overlap finds three page clusters of fake news content—two right-leaning and one left-leaning—that also contain a majority of political and news pages. Results add nuance to our understanding of fake news by illustrating the role of non-political sources in providing potential exposure to misinformation on Facebook.