Fake News Still Thriving on Twitter, Finds New Study

Oct. 5, 2018

Using tools and mapping methods from Graphika, a social media intelligence firm, the researchers studied more than 10 million tweets from 700,000 Twitter accounts that linked to more than 600 fake and conspiracy news outlets.

The microblogging site since then has stepped up its efforts to curb the spread of divisive messages and fake news on its platform.

To further protect the integrity ofelections, Twitter earlier this week announced that it will now delete fake accounts engaged in a variety of emergent, malicious behaviors.

As platform manipulation tactics continue to evolve, the micro-blogging platform said it is expanding rules to better reflect how it identifies fake accounts and what types of inauthentic activity violate its guidelines before the US mid-term elections in November.

As part of the new rules, accounts that deliberately mimic or are intended to replace accounts were previously suspended for violating rules may be identified asfake accounts, Twitter said.

Sixty-five percent of fake and conspiracy news links during the election period went to just the 10 largest sites, a statistic unchanged six months later.

“Machine Learning models estimate that 33 percent of the 100 most-followed accounts in our post-election map – and 63 percent of a random sample of all accounts – are “bots,” or automated accounts,” the study said.

“Because roughly 15 percent of accounts in the post-election map have since been suspended, the true proportion of automated accounts may have exceeded 70 percent,” it added.