Who Posts Fake News? Authentic and Inauthentic Spreaders of Fabricated News on Facebook and Twitter

Bibliographic Data

ID12909321
AuthorsTatiana Dourado (0000-0001-7208-8257, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume17
Issue10
Pages2103-2122
Publication date2023-02-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2023.2176352
OpenAlexW4320495696
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited43

Fake news has become a threat to the stability of electoral processes in the last years, spreading through decentralised and fragmented infrastructures of digital platforms. This study examines the characteristics of digital accounts that published fake news stories on social media in the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, taking into account the type, relevance and propensity of robotisation of 1073 users. The study shows that fake news stories are disseminated more by personal profiles than by pages, and that most parts of the principal spreaders presented highly relevant performance, the vast majority being Facebook accounts and a reasonable slice of Twitter. The most relevant accounts in the fake news spreading on Facebook and Twitter were classified as: "not bot-like" and "not bot", while those framed as "bot-like" or "not possible to assert" had 4.7 times less sharing. This research also shows that fake news spreading cannot be explained mainly by the use of bots, especially in elections

Advertising · Business · Computer security · Digital media · Fake news · Internet privacy · News media · Political science · Politics · Presidential election · Principal (computer security · Relevance (law · Social media · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Law · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Social Media and Politics · Spam and Phishing Detection