New York: Older adults are more likely to share links to ‘fake news’ sites on Facebook and other platforms than younger people, a US study has found. The study showed that only a small percentage of Americans — less than nine per cent — shared ‘fake news’ links on Facebook during the 2016 presidential election campaign.
However, the researchers from New York University (NYU) and Princeton University in the US showed that the behaviour was disproportionately common among people over the age of 65. “Despite widespread interest in the fake news phenomenon, we know very little about who actually shares fake news,” said Joshua Tucker, a professor at NYU. “Perhaps most significantly, we find that sharing this type of content on Facebook was a relatively rare activity during the 2016 presidential campaign,” Tucker said.
Among the overall sample of study participants, drawn from a panel survey conducted by the polling firm YouGov, only 8.5 per cent shared links from fake news sites via Facebook. Just three per cent of those aged 18-29 shared links from fake news sites, compared with 11 per cent of those over age 65. —PTI