The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2021
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| Acceso en línea: | |
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| _version_ | 1866929358588870656 |
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| author | Castioni, Piergiorgio Andrighetto, Giulia Gallotti, Riccardo Polizzi, Eugenia De Domenico, Manlio |
| author_facet | Castioni, Piergiorgio Andrighetto, Giulia Gallotti, Riccardo Polizzi, Eugenia De Domenico, Manlio |
| contents | Online platforms play a relevant role in the creation and diffusion of false or misleading news. Concerningly, the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping a communication network - barely considered in the literature - which reflects the emergence of collective attention towards a topic that rapidly gained universal interest. Here, we characterize the dynamics of this network on Twitter, analyzing how unreliable content distributes among its users. We find that a minority of accounts is responsible for the majority of the misinformation circulating online, and identify two categories of users: a few active ones, playing the role of "creators", and a majority playing the role of "consumers". The relative proportion of these groups ($\approx$14% creators - 86% consumers) appears stable over time: Consumers are mostly exposed to the opinions of a vocal minority of creators, that could be mistakenly understood as of representative of the majority of users. The corresponding pressure from a perceived majority is identified as a potential driver of the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2112_01304 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing Castioni, Piergiorgio Andrighetto, Giulia Gallotti, Riccardo Polizzi, Eugenia De Domenico, Manlio Social and Information Networks Physics and Society Online platforms play a relevant role in the creation and diffusion of false or misleading news. Concerningly, the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping a communication network - barely considered in the literature - which reflects the emergence of collective attention towards a topic that rapidly gained universal interest. Here, we characterize the dynamics of this network on Twitter, analyzing how unreliable content distributes among its users. We find that a minority of accounts is responsible for the majority of the misinformation circulating online, and identify two categories of users: a few active ones, playing the role of "creators", and a majority playing the role of "consumers". The relative proportion of these groups ($\approx$14% creators - 86% consumers) appears stable over time: Consumers are mostly exposed to the opinions of a vocal minority of creators, that could be mistakenly understood as of representative of the majority of users. The corresponding pressure from a perceived majority is identified as a potential driver of the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic. |
| title | The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing |
| topic | Social and Information Networks Physics and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.01304 |