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Facebook Democrats Republicans News

Conservatives Bombarded With Facebook Misinformation Far More Than Liberals In 2020 Election, Study Suggests (forbes.com) 424

According to new research published Thursday, conservatives on Facebook during the 2020 presidential election were more isolated and saw more misinformation than the platform's liberal users -- though Facebook widely affected users' political content in different ways. Slashdot reader RUs1729 shared one of the four peer-reviewed studies, appearing in the journals Science and Nature. Forbes reports: The study, led by two researchers from the University of Texas and New York University, had hundreds of thousands of participants and analyzed mass amounts of Facebook user data. One of the study's papers, which used aggregated data for 208 million U.S. Facebook users, found that most misinformation on Facebook existed within conservative echo chambers, which did not have an equivalent on the liberal side of the platform. The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta's third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news.

In a separate paper that assigned users to Facebook and Instagram feeds chronologically instead of algorithm-based feeds, which are the platforms' default feed types, researchers found users on chronological feeds were less engaged and saw more political content compared to those viewing algorithm-based feeds, along with more content from untrustworthy sources and more content from ideologically moderate friends and sources with mixed audiences. However, the feed analysis noted replacing algorithmic feeds with chronological ones did not create any detectable changes in political attitudes, knowledge or offline behavior.

Another paper assigned nearly 9,000 U.S.-based Facebook users feeds with no reshares, later concluding that the removal of reshared content "substantially" lessened the amount of political news, and content from all untrustworthy sources decreased overall. The two lead researchers and 15 other academics, who had control rights for the study's papers, declined compensation from Meta to ensure an ethical study was completed.

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Conservatives Bombarded With Facebook Misinformation Far More Than Liberals In 2020 Election, Study Suggests

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  • Here we go (Score:5, Funny)

    by LeeLynx ( 6219816 ) on Thursday July 27, 2023 @07:23PM (#63719938)
    This comment section should shatter some records.
    • Here's your soda, pass the popcorn.

  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Thursday July 27, 2023 @07:29PM (#63719960)
    It's not as if they could ever run on issues. You got psycho Neo-Confederate dictators running Texas and Florida with rants against fantasy enemies they made up while their people die in droves from problems they helped cause. Like some redneck Communist dystopia.
    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      I'm more curious about the sources of the misinformation as well as the categories.

      Republicans propagating anti-vaxx stuff to each other could be a great deal.

  • He loves the poorly educated [snopes.com]. And what better population to test this on than "conservatives".

  • by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [925regayov]> on Thursday July 27, 2023 @08:06PM (#63720042)

    From The Article: "The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."

    This strikes me as the fundamental flaw in the study: the researchers did not themselves assess the veracity of the information. In essence, the claims seem to hinge entirely on whether Facebook's fact checkers were correct.

    Thus, "misinformation" in this case would necessarily be defined as "statements made in contrast to the information acquired by Facebook's fact checkers".

    I'm not for a second arguing that plenty of the articles in question were misleading-at-best. I read plenty of those over that time frame...but if the liberal side of Facebook not having an echo chamber may well simply be a symptom of the left half of Facebook trusting the fact-checkers more than the article writers, and the right half of Facebook believing the inverse. As much as this may yield a "well, obviously the right wouldn't believe fact checkers!" response, suppose Elon Musk decided to implement fact checkers on X/Twitter ahead of the 2024 election...do we still trust the fact checkers Musk appoints, or do we believe Musk is off the reservation and that the people he'd allow to fact check are going to be biased at a problematic level?

    The bottom line for me is that I was willing to entertain the conclusion this article purports, until I read that the basis of these conclusions was Facebook's assessment of the articles. *That* is the sort of gratuitous oversight that should earn this article a "missing context" flag.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by quantaman ( 517394 )

      From The Article: "The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."

      This strikes me as the fundamental flaw in the study: the researchers did not themselves assess the veracity of the information. In essence, the claims seem to hinge entirely on whether Facebook's fact checkers were correct.

      I haven't actually seen any examples of fact checkers showing a bias. I'm sure there's one if you dig hard enough, but the signal is way too big to write off as biased fact-checkers.

      There's a slightly better claim of bias where right-leaning stories are more likely to get fact checked (it's not that the fact checkers are biased, but they're predominantly reviewing one side). But again, I don't think it's a big enough effect.

      As much as this may yield a "well, obviously the right wouldn't believe fact checkers!" response, suppose Elon Musk decided to implement fact checkers on X/Twitter ahead of the 2024 election...do we still trust the fact checkers Musk appoints, or do we believe Musk is off the reservation and that the people he'd allow to fact check are going to be biased at a problematic level?

      The researchers (and myself) trust the FB fact checkers because they're 3rd parties

    • by Can'tNot ( 5553824 ) on Thursday July 27, 2023 @10:45PM (#63720348)
      Facebook uses third-party fact checkers certified through the Poynter Institute. The researchers would not have been able to do better themselves, this is probably as good a way of identifying misinformation as you're going to be able to find.

      If you want to nitpick the studies, or at least what the summary says about the studies, I would nitpick about how they're using the word "conservative."
    • A fact is (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @09:21AM (#63721506)
      an objectively verifiably piece of information that is exclusively concordant with a single conclusion (definition taken YouTuber Aaron Ra).

      Misinformation is false information specifically designed to cause someone to disbelieve that single conclusion, usually for political or sales purposes.

      We absolutely know what the concept of misinformation is. You're subject line was specifically intended to make us question if it's even possible to recognize misinformation. It is, itself, a bit of misinformation. e.g. you're spreading the idea that there is no such thing as "facts" and that all information is relative. Whether you know it or not this is not an accident. I have seen dozens of posts like yours that start the same way, as well as entire articles. They most commonly come from conservative outlets.

      As for Meta's third party fact checking apparatus, regardless of the quality it's still a fact checking apparatus. While it's debatable if there are some false positives, it would have been applied to both left and right wing posters. You're not arguing that it's partisan, you're arguing it's quality might be lower, but even if it was (e.g. more or less false positives) that would all come out in the wash because we're comparing relative amounts across a huge data set.

      So unless there as a *massive* pro-left wing bias in the meta fact checker the study's results are still accurate. And, well, if that was the case right wing pundits and their multi-billion dollar media machine wouldn't shut up about it. They'd have evidence (i.e. those "facts" again) and there'd be all sorts of Congressional hearings.

      In fact there were Senate Congressional hearings by one of the GOP led Congresses. It was a big nothingburger.

      Sorry but like it or not, the study is true. The right wing gets orders of magnitude more lies spewed at them and allows it to happen. If you don't like being lied to, you shouldn't be consuming right wing media. Fox News themselves admitted they're not a News network, they're just "entertainment". It's how they got out of all the regulations that normally apply to public news outlets.
    • by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

      Riight, it's the fact-checkers who are wrong, even though there's not a shred of evidence of this.
      And the sources claiming Trump won are factual?

      You sound like the Church of Scientology.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday July 27, 2023 @08:08PM (#63720050)
    If you dig around you can fun an interview with one of the guys running an early fake news site. He was pretty up front about it just being a business and that he used it for ad revenue. They asked him why he didn't do left wing fake news and the answer was it got debunked too fast to go viral and generate a profit.

    Watch an hour of Fox News primetime and it's pretty clear the right wing has given up on the truth if you're being at all objective. And Fox is the least of there of the three or four 24 hour right wing "News" networks.

    I think a lot of people know that. I've called some of my friends out on it and they laugh it off because "it's just entertainment". Still, if you were to go hang out with a cult long enough I think you'd start believing it whether you were just there for the parties or not. There's a reason scientology keeps the really crazy stuff behind a long paywall
    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      If you dig around you can fun an interview with one of the guys running an early fake news site. He was pretty up front about it just being a business and that he used it for ad revenue. They asked him why he didn't do left wing fake news and the answer was it got debunked too fast to go viral and generate a profit.

      All this tells us is that the "left" is less susceptible to disinformation, better able to retain facts and cross check. Also has less tolerance for BS.

      I use the word "left" ironically as most people defined as "left" will be centre right, if not moderately right. Calling them "left" is a defence mechanism by the far right to prevent admitting that they're on the extreme.

      When it comes to believing fake news, disinformation or just plain old BS, it's less to do if you're left or right and more to do w

  • Doesn't seem like there are any liberals or conservatives anymore. Just crazy.
  • by OneOfMany07 ( 4921667 ) on Thursday July 27, 2023 @09:03PM (#63720164)

    The misinformation was targeted at certain people. The same people who wanted to see it. Whose fault is that?

    And it wasn't created or paid for by the opposing camp, but by people who wanted to trick others into joining their side. Who is at fault there?

    And does it matter which side had the most people trying to trick them? Maybe... but stop creating a lie for your readers in the first SENTENCE by stating a skewed part of the facts. "Technically true" is something you should avoid where possible, unless you want to be performing the same societal disservice as you're pointing out (lies to people to get them to your side).

  • >"...news stories rated false by Metaâ(TM)s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."

    Ah! The Ministry of Truth! That certainly proves what was or was not "misinformation." Great study, there. I am sure we can all rest easy, now knowing so much of that "misinformation" and "unreliable news" turned out to be true.

  • Conservatives CRAVE misinformation. And, because they are the fanatical minority likely to resort to violence, Russia and China target them.
  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @09:30AM (#63721528) Homepage

    It's wrong to call the GOP "conservative". It has abandoned any pretense of sticking to conservative roots and has become a radical fascist cult of personality, a conspiracy theory echo chamber, and a refuge for haters of anyone who is different.

    The GOP needs to either reform itself or be dismantled and replaced with an actual moderate conservative party.

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