The Latest COMPROP Weekly Misinformation Briefing is Now Available Online: “Social Media Junk News Around Absentee Vote Counts in the US Presidential Election”

We provide a weekly briefing about the spread of misinformation across six social media platforms. For the seven days prior to 29- 10-2020 we find:

• The social media distribution network of all articles from the top fifteen mainstream news outlets reached just below three billion social media users this week, achieving much greater distribution than state-backed and junk news sources. But the average article from state-backed sources reached over 8,500 users, while the average article from mainstream sources reached over 4,400 users and the average junk health article reached over 2,000 users.
• Similarly, aggregate content from mainstream sources gets the largest amount of total user engagement. However, on a per article basis, state-backed news receives over 450 engagements and junk news receives over 1,200, while average articles from mainstream sources get over 350 engagements.
• The most prominent junk news and state-backed topics, in descending order, were the Chinese International Import Expo, final junk news commentary before the US election, terrorist attacks in France and Austria, updates on vote counts in key US states, and general coronavirus statistics around the world.

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5 pages; PDF.

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