Researchers say fake news had 'substantial impact' on 2016 election

[Arkansas Granny]

A team of researchers at Ohio State University conclude in a new study that “fake news” stories had a significant impact on voters in the 2016 presidential election that may have impacted the final result.

The study, first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, sought to measure the degree to which false news stories dissuaded voters who cast ballots for President Obama in 2012 from voting for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

While the researchers emphasized that they could not definitively say that fake news “caused” Obama voters to defect from Clinton in 2016, they nevertheless concluded that these stories had a “substantial impact” on voters that may have been sufficient enough to swing the election to Donald Trump.
“Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that fake news most likely did have a substantial impact on the voting decisions of a strategically important set of voters—those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012,” the researchers wrote.

“Indeed, given the very narrow margins of victory by Donald Trump in key battleground states, this impact may have been sufficient to deprive Hillary Clinton of a victory in the Electoral College.”

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/381449-researchers-say-fake-news-had-substantial-impact-on-2016-election

[zipplewrath]

1. There was doubt?

I mean, I get the whole "just how much" part, but they weren't doing it out of some grand experiment. This whole effort is grounded in the well understood concept of propaganda. Furthermore, they had done it in other countries. Heck, this kind of coordinated effort is used by the military in every war to influence the American public.

[Control-Z]

2. Of course it did.

Even without Comey's little announcement...filthy, fucking cheaters.

Damn, it pisses me off.

[unblock]

3. "fake news" is nothing new. journalistic standards have been eroding for decades.

in 1988, the national media made out like there was an epidemic of flag-burning. it became one of the major issues of the presidential campaign season.

roughly four incidents a year across the nation, but that got the 1988 equivalent of being "retweeted" a brazillion times.


and of course in 2000 the "fake news" insisted that al gore lied about a few things when of course they had to really twist his words to make it even appear so. so al gore, who is practically mr. integrity in washington, became smeared as dishonest somehow.


it's faster these days, and maybe more extreme, but journalistic coverage of national politics in this country has been going downhill for a long, long time.

and of course it works. why else do it?

nothing new here.

[Gothmog]

4. All of the fake new stories listed were big hits on JPR

The stories listed by the Washington Post as fake news stories that helped defeat Clinton were on numerous threads on JPR https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/03/a-new-study-suggests-fake-news-might-have-won-donald-trump-the-2016-election/?utm_term=.a20c1f8ee6fd

Here are the false stories, along with the percentages of Obama supporters who believed they were at least “probably” true (in parenthesis):

Clinton was in “very poor health due to a serious illness” (12 percent)
Pope Francis endorsed Trump (8 percent)
Clinton approved weapons sales to Islamic jihadists, “including ISIS” (20 percent)

Overall, about one-quarter of 2012 Obama voters believed at least one of these stories (26 percent). And of that group, 45 percent voted for Clinton. Eighty-nine 89 percent believed none of the three fake stories.

I saw these fake news stories on numerous threads on JPR

[Skittles]

5. so Trump, who cries about FAKE NEWS every fucking day

is in the White House because of Russian FAKE NEWS