Republicans are increasingly sharing misinformation, research finds

[ItsjustMe]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-are-increasingly-sharing-misinformation-research-finds/ar-AA11dIN6


Over the last several years, there’s been a considerable increase in media coverage about misinformation and conspiracy theories in politics.


Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen, and his Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally led some supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol. Members of Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), have repeatedly shared covid-19 misinformation and embraced QAnon conspiracy theories. And more than 100 Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms continue to promote Trump’s election fraud claims.

The media has routinely reported on these falsehoods, making it seem like misinformation is rampant in politics. But are candidates for Congress actually sharing more misinformation in 2022 than 2020?

Yes, according to our analysis of congressional candidates’ Facebook posts. We found that politicians in the 2022 election are sharing more links to unreliable news sources than they did in 2020, and the increase appears to be driven by nonincumbent Republican candidates.

Conspiracy theories are spreading more wildly than ever. Why now?
How we did our research

Measuring misinformation on social media is complicated. With billions of posts per day on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it would be impossible to examine each one for misinformation. Instead, to approximate the level of misinformation shared by political candidates, we relied on NewsGuard, a nonpartisan organization that provides trust ratings for news sources online.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. When you're a Republican it's what you do.

They call them alt facts.