slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

By Seth Borenstein, AP science writer

The first major study to look at who is sharing links from debunked sites finds that not many people are doing. it. On average, only 8.5% of those studied...about 1 person out of 12...shared false information during the 2016 campaign, according to the study in the latest journal of Science Advances. But those doing it tend to be older and more conservative.

For something to be v***l, you've got to know who shares it," said study co-author Jonathan Nagler, a politics professor and co-director of the Social Media and Political Participation Lab at New York University. "Wow, old people are much more likely than young people to do that."

Facebook and other social media copanies were caught off-guard in 2016 when Russian agents exploited their platforms to meddle with the U.S. p**********l e******n by spreading f**e news, impersonating Americans and running targeted advertisements to try to sway v**es. Since then, the companies have thrown millions of dollars and thousands of people into fighting false information.

Researchers used three different lists of false information sites...one compiled by Buzzfeed and two others from academic research teams...and counted how often people shared from those sites. Then to double check, they looked at 897 specific articles that had been found false by fact checkers and saw how often those were spread.

All those lists showed similar trends.

When other demographic factors and overall posting tendencies are factored in, the average person older than 65 shared seven times more false information than those between 18 and 29. The seniors shared more than twice as many f**e stories as people between 45 and 64 and more than three times that of people in the 30-44 yr. old range, said lead study author Andrew Guess, a politics professor at Princeton.

The simplest theory for why older people share more false information is a lack of 'digital literacy,' said study co-author Joshua Tucker, also co-director of the NYU social media political lab. Senior citizens may not tell t***h from lies on social networks as easily as others, the researchers said.

Harvard public policy and communication professor Marrthew Baum, who was not part of the study but praised it, said he thinks sharing false information is "less about beliefs in the facts of a story than about signaling one's partisan indentity." That's why efforts to correct f**ery don't really change attitudes and one reason why few people share false information, he said.

When other demographics and posting practices are factored in, people who called themselves very conservative shared the most false information, a bit more than those who identify themselves as conservative. The 'very' conservatives shared misinformation 6.8 times more often than the 'very' liberals and 6.7 times more than moderates. People who called themselves liberals essentially shared no f**e stories, Guess said.

Nagler said he was not surprised that conservatives in 2016 shared more f**e information, but he and his colleagues said that does not necessarily mean that conservatives are by nature more gullible when it comes to false stories. It could simply reflect that there was so much more pro-Trump and anti-Clinton false information in circulation 2016 that it drove the members for sharing they said.

However, Baum said in an email that conservatives post more false information because they tend to be more extreme, with less ideological variation than their liberal counterparts and they take their lead from President Trump, who "advocates, supports, shares and produces f**e news/misinformation on a regular basis."

The researchers looked at differences in g****r, race and income but could not find any statistically significant differences in sharing of false information.

After much criticism, Facebook made changes to fight false information, including de-emphasizing proven false stories in people's feeds so others are less likely to see them. It seems to be working, Guess said. Facebook officials declined to comment.

"I think if we were to run this study again, we might not get the same results," Guess said.

MIT's Deb Roy, a former Twitter chief media scientist, said the problem is that the American news diet is "full of balkanized narratives" with people seeking information that they agree with and called true news that they don't agree with f**e.

moldyoldy

Some of us grew up with newspapers, where you had actual news, then you had opinion pages where people wrote how they felt about news stories. Today, it is mostly opinion disguised as news on TV.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I wouldn't argue with that.

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

Older, traditional Americans, are not as often deceived and fooled by the so called "new" t***hs. That's precisely why we're Conservatives. But we're dying out and we're not being sufficiently replaced. This is not a good forecast for America where the true wisdom of elders will be replaced with simple and undisciplined emotions - "I know how you feel."

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

There is a difference between what is true - and what one wishes were true. Repeating a falsehood X number of times does not turn it into the t***h, but does convince the weak minded that it might be the t***h.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

What if YOUR information is f**e?

woodguru

What if you stopped believing rhetoric and trusting sources that also publish the source facts?

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Give me an example of your sourced facts and my rhetoric things.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

One can always check out the sites/links or the organizations mentioned and make their own decision. But, don't you already

moldyoldy

Trump stated that the intel chiefs were misquoted, and that they are on the same page. F**e news, according to trump. Yet we all heard them speak in real time. Is trump crazy or does he have such a low opinion of the public, that he thinks that will fly?

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Yeah, incredible he said that, after our hearing the panel of intelligence officials while on tv camera.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

How many did you see on TV versus how many there are?

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

What does that matter, as no answer will satisfy all and many only believe what they choose

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Quite the contrary. Trump might be talking with his many other Intel advisors who were not on live TV for interview. There are 17 Intel agencies and they do not ever agree.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Of course, there will always be those who, being contrarian by nature, will remain feisty and combative in spite of all evidence.