Mar 05, 2021 19:00:00

Research results that 'the far right community on Facebook is highly responsive to news and misinformation is likely to spread'

In 2020, there was a series of news that would shake society, such as the epidemic of the new coronavirus,

Black Lives Matter, and the US presidential election. As a result, social media such as Facebook and Twitter have become flooded with misinformation and fake news. A research team at New York University reports that 'political ideology can make a big difference in how misinformation spreads on Facebook.'

Far-right news sources on Facebook more engaging | by Cybersecurity for Democracy | Cybersecurity for Democracy | Mar, 2021 | Medium
https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-news-sources-on-facebook-more-engaging-e04a01efae90

Right-wing misinformation on Facebook is more engaging than its left-wing counterpart, research finds --CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/03/tech/facebook-right-wing-misinformation/

The research team focused on Facebook pages, which have an average of over 100 followers and deliver a variety of news sources. Approximately 3000 pages analyzed were rated by independent organizations as having political ideology of 'extreme right,' 'slightly right,' 'neutral,' 'slightly left,' and 'extreme left.' We quantified and analyzed the reactions from followers, such as the number of followers, the number of likes, and the number of comments.

Then, it turned out that the Facebook page evaluated as 'extreme right' or 'extreme left' had a high response from the followers. In particular, it turned out that the Facebook page evaluated as 'extreme right' has an overwhelming number of likes and shares. In other words, the Facebook page on the far right is more engaged than any other ideology.

The graph below shows the number of reactions per 1000 followers per day as a line graph. Of these, the far right (red) has been shown to have an overwhelmingly large number of reactions compared to other ideologies.

Also, on the Facebook page of each ideology, the number of correct news delivered (green) and the number of fake news (red) are shown in a bar graph below. Far Right at the top had about 260 correct news, compared to more than 420 fake news. On the far right Facebook page, the number of news distributions is by far the largest, and compared to other ideologies, you can see that only 'fake news is distributed more'.

Facebook has a mechanism that the higher the engagement that is the user's reaction index to the Facebook page, the denser the community and the easier it is for information to spread. 'The results of this analysis show that misinformation from the right wing is likely to be considered'the most compelling content on Facebook',' said Laura Ederson, a researcher at New York University.

'We found that there are far more fake news sources on the far right than any other ideology. For Facebook, which uses engagement to promote communities and ads, this result is probably quite dangerous,' Edelson said. Did.

CNN, an overseas news media, contacted Facebook about the results of this research, but did not receive any comments.