Fake news rife on Twitter during election week, study from Oxford says

The project’s recent research on polarizing information shared in the lead up to the 2016 US election was covered on CNN. Samantha Bradshaw appeared on CNN’s morning show to discuss.

“Polarizing and conspiratorial junk news” was as prevalent on Twitter as news from legitimate outlets in the days immediately before and after the US presidential election, a new study out of the University of Oxford released Thursday suggests.

Researchers from the university’s Computational Propaganda Project examined more than 7 million tweets sent between November 1-11, 2016, which contained hashtags related to politics and the election. The study has yet to be peer reviewed and the team acknowledged limitations to its methodology.

Watch the full video here.