French social media awash with fake news stories from sources ‘exposed to Russian influence’ ahead of presidential election

Our research on the 2017 French election was covered by the Independent.

French voters have been deluged with fake news stories on their social media feeds ahead of the country’s presidential election, many from sources “exposed to Russian influence”, new research has found.

Researchers from Oxford University found up to a quarter of the political links shared on Twitter in France were based on misinformation. They were identified as deliberately false and expressed “ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan or conspiratorial” views with logical flaws and opinions presented as facts.

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