A Small Group with a Big Problem

Photo by Con Karampelas on Unsplash

By Darren Katz, Amplia Group Founding Partner

With all of the rancor over fake news being shared on social media, a recent study published in Science shed light on the context and extent of the problem.  According to the article 1% of Twitter users were exposed to 80% of the fake news and 0.1% of the users were responsible for sharing 80% of the fake news.  

In addition, these “Supersharers” of fake news posted an average of 71 times per day compared with the average share ratio on Twitter of 0.1 per day. The researchers strongly speculate that this activity is most likely from Twitter bots.

The takeaways from this research are profound. First, the fake news problem on Twitter is highly concentrated and may not have had the electoral impact many have suggested.  Second, it is relatively simple for Twitter to identify and ban the sources of the vast majority of this content.  

While there will certainly be a game of whack-a-mole as the bots change handles, it provides Twitter with a clear path forward.  One final thought is that if the researchers could access these data, certainly Twitter has them as well.  So what’s taking so long?