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The battleground state of Michigan had its fair of fake news during and after the presidential campaign, a study shows.
Jonathan Oosting of The Detroit News reports:
Michigan Twitter feeds were flooded with fake, untrustworthy or otherwise dubious “news” accounts in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, according to a new study.
Researchers from Oxford University in England say “junk news” was as prevalent — if not more widespread — than professional news content shared on the social media site by self-identified Michigan users between Nov. 1 and 11.
“Not only did this computational propaganda ‘outperform’ real news in Michigan in the lead-up to the presidential election, but the proportion of professional news content being shared hit its lowest point the day before the election,” Oxford researchers wrote in a paper released last week.
