IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v7y2023i7d10.1038_s41562-023-01564-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2020 US election

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan C. Moore

    (Stanford University)

  • Ross Dahlke

    (Stanford University)

  • Jeffrey T. Hancock

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

Research using large-scale data on individuals’ internet use has provided vital information about the scope and nature of exposure to misinformation online. However, most prior work relies on data collected during the 2016 US election. Here we examine exposure to untrustworthy websites during the 2020 US election, using over 7.5 million website visits from 1,151 American adults. We find that 26.2% (95% confidence interval 22.5% to 29.8%) of Americans were exposed to untrustworthy websites in 2020, down from 44.3% (95% confidence interval 40.8% to 47.7%) in 2016. Older adults and conservatives continued to be the most exposed in 2020 as in 2016, albeit at lower rates. The role of online platforms in exposing people to untrustworthy websites changed, with Facebook playing a smaller role in 2020 than in 2016. Our findings do not minimize misinformation as a key social problem, but instead highlight important changes in its consumption, suggesting directions for future research and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan C. Moore & Ross Dahlke & Jeffrey T. Hancock, 2023. "Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2020 US election," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(7), pages 1096-1105, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:7:d:10.1038_s41562-023-01564-2
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01564-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01564-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-023-01564-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Guess, Andrew M., 2015. "Measure for Measure: An Experimental Test of Online Political Media Exposure," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 59-75, January.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2019. "Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media," NBER Working Papers 25500, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Byron Reeves & Thomas Robinson & Nilam Ram, 2020. "Time for the Human Screenome Project," Nature, Nature, vol. 577(7790), pages 314-317, January.
    5. Andrew M. Guess & Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler, 2020. "Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2016 US election," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 472-480, May.
    6. Philip Ball & Amy Maxmen, 2020. "The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7809), pages 371-374, May.
    7. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    8. Santosh Vijaykumar & Yan Jin & Daniel Rogerson & Xuerong Lu & Swati Sharma & Anna Maughan & Bianca Fadel & Mariella Silva Oliveira Costa & Claudia Pagliari & Daniel Morris, 2021. "How shades of truth and age affect responses to COVID-19 (Mis)information: randomized survey experiment among WhatsApp users in UK and Brazil," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-12, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher Adamo & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2023. "Sentiment and the belief in fake news during the 2020 presidential primaries," Oxford Open Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 2, pages 512-547.
    2. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina, 2020. "Facebook Causes Protests," HiCN Working Papers 323, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Bartosz Wilczek, 2020. "Misinformation and herd behavior in media markets: A cross-national investigation of how tabloids’ attention to misinformation drives broadsheets’ attention to misinformation in political and business," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    4. Nyabuti Damaris Kemunto & Prof. Hezron Mogambi & Dr. Anita Kiamba, 2023. "Foreign Policy Disinformation: Fueling Polarization and Deterioration of the Public Sphere in Kenya," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 7(8), pages 425-442, August.
    5. Saumya Bhadani & Shun Yamaya & Alessandro Flammini & Filippo Menczer & Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia & Brendan Nyhan, 2022. "Political audience diversity and news reliability in algorithmic ranking," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(4), pages 495-505, April.
    6. Andrew P. Weiss & Ahmed Alwan & Eric P. Garcia & Antranik T. Kirakosian, 2021. "Toward a Comprehensive Model of Fake News: A New Approach to Examine the Creation and Sharing of False Information," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, July.
    7. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    8. João Pedro Baptista & Anabela Gradim, 2020. "Understanding Fake News Consumption: A Review," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Matilde Giaccherini & Joanna Kopinska & Gabriele Rovigatti, 2022. "Vax Populi: The Social Costs of Online Vaccine Skepticism," CESifo Working Paper Series 10184, CESifo.
    10. Jost, Peter J. & Pünder, Johanna & Schulze-Lohoff, Isabell, 2020. "Fake news - Does perception matter more than the truth?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    11. Yesilada, Muhsin & Lewandowsky, Stephan, 2022. "Systematic review: YouTube recommendations and problematic content," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22.
    12. Giacomo Manetti & Carmela Nitti & Marco Bellucci, 2022. "The accountability of Search and Rescue NGOs," Working Papers - Business wp2022_02.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    13. Ka Chung Ng & Ping Fan Ke & Mike K. P. So & Kar Yan Tam, 2023. "Augmenting fake content detection in online platforms: A domain adaptive transfer learning via adversarial training approach," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(7), pages 2101-2122, July.
    14. Domenico, Giandomenico Di & Sit, Jason & Ishizaka, Alessio & Nunan, Daniel, 2021. "Fake news, social media and marketing: A systematic review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 329-341.
    15. Michele Cantarella & Nicolo' Fraccaroli & Roberto Volpe, 2019. "Does fake news affect voting behaviour?," Department of Economics 0146, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    16. Laura Studen & Victor Tiberius, 2020. "Social Media, Quo Vadis? Prospective Development and Implications," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-22, August.
    17. Raúl Rodríguez-Ferrándiz & Cande Sánchez-Olmos & Tatiana Hidalgo-Marí & Estela Saquete-Boro, 2021. "Memetics of Deception: Spreading Local Meme Hoaxes during COVID-19 1st Year," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-19, June.
    18. Mohsen Mosleh & David G. Rand, 2022. "Measuring exposure to misinformation from political elites on Twitter," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    19. Fabio Padovano & Pauline Mille, 2023. "Education, fake news and the Political Budget Cycle," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2023-01-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    20. Artem Zakharchenko & Tomáš Peráček & Solomiia Fedushko & Yuriy Syerov & Olha Trach, 2021. "When Fact-Checking and ‘BBC Standards’ Are Helpless: ‘Fake Newsworthy Event’ Manipulation and the Reaction of the ‘High-Quality Media’ on It," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:7:d:10.1038_s41562-023-01564-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.