'Junk news' gets massive engagement on Facebook ahead of EU elections
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Imagesas articles from legitimate sources in the run up to European elections, according to a study from Oxford University.by the Oxford Internet Institute, said individual so-called "junk news" stories got up to four times as many shares, likes and comments as content from reputable sources.
"Most viral junk news stories in our data set revolved around controversial political issues such as immigration and security rather than focusing directly on European politics.", by contrast, researchers said junk news appeared much less prevalent, with less than 4% of news content shared on the microblogging site coming from less trustworthy sources. In Poland, however, the level of junk news in circulation was higher at 21%.
Twitter declined to comment on the study. Facebook was not immediately available when contacted by CNBC. Facebook for example recently set up an operations room in Dublin to monitor online disinformation and election interference, similar to the widely publicized "Twitter meanwhile publishes biannual transparency reports to show how its tackling attempts to manipulate the platform.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Opinion | Conservatives’ junk science is having real consequencesRepublicans who favor strict abortion laws don’t even seem to understand the finer points of reproduction.
Read more »
Teachers grapple with climate change: 'A pretty scary topic'When science teacher Diana Allen set out to teach climate change, a subject she'd never learned in school, she fell into a rabbit's hole of misinformation: Many resources presented online as...
Read more »
The brightest minds on Wall Street say companies are sitting on a ticking time bomb that could spark a rash of bankruptcies — and make the next recession even worseA record portion of the investment-grade bond market sits just one step above junk status, and any economic turbulence could create big problems.
Read more »
Teachers grapple with climate change: 'A pretty scary topic'When science teacher Diana Allen set out to teach climate change, a subject she'd never learned in school, she fell into a rabbit's hole of misinformation: Many resources presented online as...
Read more »
Dodgy Wall Street deals point to trouble ahead. ‘People are going to get burned’Bankers who in October suggested a $120-billion valuation for Uber Technologies Inc. have eaten their words, with the market cap falling to half that.
Read more »
Majority of Europeans think the EU will fall apart within 20 years, study findsResearch published this week showed that levels of support for membership of the European Union are high – but so is pessimism about the future of the bloc.
Read more »
In France's Somme, far right stirs anti-EU feeling ahead of electionsThe farmland around Abbeville, in the Somme valley of northeastern France, saw s...
Read more »
In hometown, Macron battles disillusion and apathy ahead of EU electionIn Emmanuel Macron's hometown of Amiens, it's hard to find enthusiasm ...
Read more »
Google, Facebook, Twitter rapped for not doing enough in EU fake news fightFacebook, Google and Twitter were reprimanded by the European Commission on Frid...
Read more »
Joe Biden used his massive early fundraising haul to outspend Trump on Facebook and Google adsFor a while, Trump was dominating online advertising spend on Google and Facebook, but Democrats are catching up.
Read more »