Disinformation, 'Fake News’ and Influence Campaigns on Twitter‘

How did misinformation spread during the 2016 presidential election and has anything changed since? A new study of more than 10 million tweets from 700,000 Twitter accounts that linked to more than 600 misinformation and conspiracy news outlets answers this question, revealing that the concentrated “fake news” ecosystem active during the 2016 election is still in place today. The report highlights more than 6.6 million tweets linking to fake news and conspiracy news publishers in the month before the 2016 election. The problem persisted in the aftermath of the election with 4 million tweets to fake and conspiracy news publishers found from mid-March to mid-April 2017. More than 80 percent of accounts that repeatedly spread misinformation during the 2016 election campaign are still active, and they continue to publish more than a million tweets on a typical day. The study includes detailed maps of the networks of accounts that spread misinformation. These show the structural relationships between accounts that link to sites identified as “fake and conspiracy news,” and illustrate how specific stories and hashtags are shared. Network analysis identifies a dense “disinformation supercluster” containing thousands of accounts that repeatedly post links to fake and conspiracy news.