The spreading of misinformation online
Michela Del Vicarioa, Alessandro Bessib, Fabiana Zolloa, Fabio Petronic, Antonio Scalaa,d, Guido Caldarellia,d, H. Eugene Stanleye, and Walter Quattrociocchia,1
aLaboratory of Computational Social Science, Networks Department, IMT Alti Studi Lucca, 55100 Lucca, Italy;
bIUSS Institute for Advanced Study, 27100 Pavia, Italy;
cSapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy;
dISC-CNR Uos “Sapienza,” 00185 Rome, Italy;
eBoston University, Boston, MA 02115
Edited by Matjaz Perc, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, and accepted by the Editorial Board December 4, 2015 (received for review September 1, 2015)
Significance
The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media facilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives. However, the World Wide Web is a fruitful environment for the massive diffusion of unverified rumors. In this work, using a massive quantitative analysis of Facebook, we show that information related to distinct narratives––conspiracy theories and scientific news––generates homogeneous and polarized communities (i.e., echo chambers) having similar information consumption patterns. Then, we derive a data-driven percolation model of rumor spreading that demonstrates that homogeneity and polarization are the main determinants for predicting cascades’ size.
Abstract
The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media facilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives. However, the World Wide Web (WWW) also allows for the rapid dissemination of unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories that often elicit rapid, large, but naive social responses such as the recent case of Jade Helm 15––where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of a new civil war in the United States. In this work, we address the determinants governing misinformation spreading through a thorough quantitative analysis. In particular, we focus on how Facebook users consume information related to two distinct narratives: scientific and conspiracy news. We find that, although consumers of scientific and conspiracy stories present similar consumption patterns with respect to content, cascade dynamics differ. Selective exposure to content is the primary driver of content diffusion and generates the formation of homogeneous clusters, i.e., “echo chambers.” Indeed, homogeneity appears to be the primary driver for the diffusion of contents and each echo chamber has its own cascade dynamics. Finally, we introduce a data-driven percolation model mimicking rumor spreading and we show that homogeneity and polarization are the main determinants for predicting cascades’ size.
misinformation virality Facebook rumor spreading cascades
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: walterquattrociocchi{at}gmail.com.
Author contributions: M.D.V., A.B., F.Z., A.S., G.C., H.E.S., and W.Q. designed research; M.D.V., A.B., F.Z., H.E.S., and W.Q. performed research; M.D.V., A.B., F.Z., F.P., and W.Q. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; M.D.V., A.B., F.Z., A.S., G.C., H.E.S., and W.Q. analyzed data; and M.D.V., A.B., F.Z., A.S., G.C., H.E.S., and W.Q. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. M.P. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
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