This is some pretty dense reading, but it clearly outlines some staggering differences in online information behaviors between left- and right-wing audiences.
- right-wingers keep searching for news items until they find something that supports their point of view, regardless of the legitimacy of the source
- right-wingers purposely game the system–cheap algorthim tricks and sophistcated bots–to amplify those sources far beyond real human behavior
- this leads not only to right wing news operations like FoxNews to act as aggregators of manipulated content, but also draws legitimate news organizations into promoting right-leaning content
- much of the original content is generated or introduced in narrow alt-tech right-wing communities like Parler and 4chan, carefully out of sight of moderating influences and where it’s honed for wider distribution.
It’s all in bad faith. People are not being gullible or stupid. They’re going out of their way to cheat and lie and spread hate.
[from Science magazine]
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False equivalencies: Online activism from left to rightDigital media are critical for contemporary activism—even low-effort “clicktivism” is politically consequential and contributes to offline participation. We argue that in the United States and throughout the industrialized West, left- and right-wing activists use digital and legacy media differently…