Abstract

Lies spread faster than the truth There is worldwide concern over false news and the possibility that it can influence political, economic, and social well-being. To understand how false news spreads, Vosoughi et al. used a data set of rumor cascades on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. About 126,000 rumors were spread by ∼3 million people. False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth. The degree of novelty and the emotional reactions of recipients may be responsible for the differences observed. Science , this issue p. 1146

Keywords

RumorFake newsNoveltySocial mediaSet (abstract data type)DeceptionPoliticsInternet privacyPolitical sciencePsychologyComputer scienceSocial psychologyLaw

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Publication Info

Year
2018
Type
article
Volume
359
Issue
6380
Pages
1146-1151
Citations
7636
Access
Closed

Social Impact

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

7636
OpenAlex
336
Influential
5412
CrossRef

Cite This

Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, Sinan Aral (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science , 359 (6380) , 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/science.aap9559
PMID
29590045

Data Quality

Data completeness: 86%