Abstract

Online misinformation is believed to have contributed to vaccine hesitancy during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting concerns about social media’s destabilizing role in public life. Previous research identified a link between political conservatism and sharing misinformation; however, it is not clear how partisanship affects how much misinformation people see online. As a result, we do not know whether partisanship drives exposure to misinformation or people selectively share misinformation despite being exposed to factual content. To address this question, we study Twitter discussions about the Covid-19 pandemic, classifying users along the political and factual spectrum based on the information sources they share. In addition, we quantify exposure through retweet interactions. We uncover partisan asymmetries in the exposure to misinformation: conservatives are more likely to see and share misinformation …

Metadata

publication

Scientific reports 12 (1), 15671, 2022

year

2022

publication date

2022/9/19

authors

Ashwin Rao, Fred Morstatter, Kristina Lerman

link

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19837-7

resource_link

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19837-7

journal

Scientific reports

volume

12

issue

1

pages

15671

publisher

Nature Publishing Group UK