Daily Digit: A majority of Twitter’s fake-news-spreading accounts are still active today
Daily Digit is the story behind the numbers that make our world work. Today we’re looking at fake news on Twitter. According to a new study, more than 80 percent of Twitter accounts that spread false information during the 2016 presidential election are still active today. The study analyzed 10 million tweets from 700,000 accounts that were linked to 600 fake news sites. Russian propaganda bots had a hand in creating accounts that spread conspiracies and fake news, but today much of the intent to increase misinformation is attributed to American accounts. And since the 2016 election, the number of left-leaning accounts has decreased more than those airing right-wing views. Twitter has repeatedly said it plans to close all accounts that spread fake news. But with less than a month until midterms, these accounts are still spreading false information.
