The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News (on Twitter)

A massive study of every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories. A false story is much more likely to go viral than a real story, and reaches 1,500 people six times quicker, on average, than a true story does. Falsehoods were still 70 percent more likely to get retweeted than accurate news. It is a danger to public debate and democratic decision-making.