ICA 2024 [13]

“What Else Are They Talking About?”: A Large-Scale Longitudinal Analysis of Misinformation Super-Spreader Communities on Facebook

Daniel Angus, Stephen Harrington, Axel Bruns, Phoebe Matich, Nadia Jude, Edward Hurcombe, Ashwin Nagappa

• 22 June 2024 – Paper presented by Daniel Angus and Axel Bruns at the ICA 2024 [13] conference, Gold Coast

Presentation Slides

Abstract

This paper focusses on a computationally-assisted analysis of the broad topics of discussion in 954 Facebook pages and groups that are most strongly implicated, and highly visible, in the sharing of links to 2314 high-profile ‘fake news’ websites, between 2016 and 2022. Our approach allows us to, first, understand what else (beyond problematic content) users share in these spaces and, second, how a specific topic of interest may play a role in driving users to share mis- and disinformation.