The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing.

ABSTRACT: 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 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, analysing 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

SUBMITTER: Castioni P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9597167 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature