As we all know, social media is even more polarized — and polarizing — than the rest of American society. It’s where people go to rant, rave and all-caps scream about politics and the media. If not for social media, fake news would not be spreading as rapidly as it is in 2018. But not all social media accounts are equal when it comes to spreading falsehoods and creating online echo chambers. According to a new study from the University of Oxford that looked at junk news and political polarization among groups of American Facebook and Twitter users, political conservatives are more likely to share junk news. (“Junk news,” or fake news, is defined as media that is purposely misleading, deceptive or incorrect and which aims to convince readers that it is real news.) https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/fake-news-oxford-study/

1. Conservative Media 14 Democratic Party 4
Local News 3 Mainstream 6
Other 6 Party Politics 10
Progressive Movement 9 Republican Party 6
Resistance 27 Trump Support 14
14%
4%
3%
6%
6%
10%
9%6%
27%
14%
ThePolarizationofFakeNews
Trump Support
55% of the fake
news shared in the
study group came
from supporters of
President Trump.
SOURCES
"Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption
over Social Media in the US," from Oxford University's
Computational Propaganda Project
andsocialmedia'sroleinitsspread
TwitterUsersByAffinityGroup 55%
HowMuchFakeNewsAre
TheySpreading?
Conservative Media
Conservative media
Twitter accounts were
responsible for sharing
20% of fake news
followed during the
study.
20%
Resistance
Anti-Trump
"Resistance"
accounts were
responsible for 18%
of the fake news
shared during the
course of the study.
18%
Everyone Else
The rest of the
tracked groups were
responsible for only
6% of the fake news,
with Democratic
Party and Local
News accounts
sharing none.
6%
Conspiracy 9 Democratic Party 11
Environmental
Movement
9 Hard Conservative 8
Libertarians 2 Military Guns 4
Occupy 10 Other Left 6
Other Non-Political 16 Public Health 7
Republican Party 2 Sustainable Farming 11
Women's Rights 6
9%
11%
9%
8%
2%
4%10%6%
16%
7%
2%
11%
6%
FacebookUsersByAffinityGroup
Hard Conservative
58% of the fake
news shared on
Facebook came from
hard conservatives,
who shared news
from 91% of the fake
news sites.
58%
HowMuchFakeNewsAre
TheySpreading?
Democratic Party
The second-biggest
sharers of fake news
on Facebook,
Democratic Party
accounts shared 12%
of the fake news from
40% of the fake sites.
12%
Occupy
Facebook accounts
associated with the
Occupy Wall
Street/Occupy
movement shared
7% of the fake news
seen during the
course of the study.
7%
Public Health
The only group to
NOT share fake
news on Facebook
were the accounts
identified as
belonging to public
health organizations.
0%