3 ms·

I doubt this meta analysis is done well enough to make a statement such as the title. Easily seems like a personal sentiment backed by some well picked numbers.

I doubt this meta analysis is done well enough to make a statement such as the title. Easily seems like a personal sentiment backed by some well picked numbers. Look forward to all of the opinions based off this as if it were fact. - What does far right mean? - What does misinformation mean? - Measuring engagement is much more involved than looking at comment totals On another note, does anyone else find it laughable that a researcher thinks they can so easily categorise political affiliations to internet communities? "HN is far right!" Edit: This post is already getting nasty. I don't care if you're left or right, I'm ripping on academics and the current state of research. The social sciences need to be reigned back in.

minikites 6y ago
This is not the first article about how far-right misinformation is flourishing online and it would not be difficult to find corroborating articles, which I invite you to try.
- why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
  Time to post my favorite downvote farming comment! What is "far right"? Is there "near right"? "middle-reach right"? 'Far right' is just a BS title used to 'adjust' the perception of people that anyone not left wing is crazy extremist nutjob.
  - minikites 6y ago
    This is far right: a national newscaster agreeing with a guest that the Republican Party will pick an actual fascist in 10-20 years: https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/1375251130586963968 https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/1375251130586963968. This is exactly the type of content that gets shared on Facebook and spreads as the article describes.
  - pacerwpg 6y ago
    The article provides examples and cites the source of their classifications. "MARTIN: So when you talk about a far-right news source, do you feel comfortable giving us an example that we might recognize? I know what I certainly think of, but what are you thinking of? EDELSON: So some of the top-performing far-right news sources in our data set were things like Newsmax, Breitbart - that kind of media source. MARTIN: And you and your colleagues say that far-right content is the only partisan leaning in which misinformation actually drives more engagement. And there is no what you call misinformation penalty. Could you just talk a little bit more about that? So a misinformation penalty is what? Is that if you are demonstrated to be inaccurate or false, then what? People who are on the left side of the ledger would give you less credibility. Is that it? EDELSON: So we can't say exactly why it's happening. But what we see is that for left-leaning sources, for center sources, and even slightly right, the sources that have a reputation for spreading misinformation just don't engage as well. There could be a variety of reasons for that. But certainly, the simplest explanation would be that users don't find them as credible and don't want to engage with them."
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > Is there "near right"? "middle-reach right"? It’s generally called Center-Right. Mitt Romney, John McCain would be good examples.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  I'm sure you can also find plenty of articles about how the Earth is flat. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
  - minikites 6y ago
    You genuinely thought I was suggesting articles of that caliber?
staplung 6y ago
It's not meta analysis. Also, the effect size is rather large. What basis do you see for doubting how well the study was done?
- calkuta 6y ago
  The research is highly politicized, which is tip number one that it lacks merit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ncallaway 6y ago
> this meta analysis is done This wasn't a meta analysis. ---- > - What does far right mean? They obtained ratings from News Guard (https://www.newsguardtech.com/ https://www.newsguardtech.com/) and Media Bias Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com https://mediabiasfactcheck.com). You can go to those sites to review their ratings to determine how well you think they do at rating sites: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/right https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/right, or https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left. ---- > - What does misinformation mean? Again, that comes from NewsGuard and MediaBiasFactCheck, which you can investigate yourself. > Finally, we rely on NewsGuard and Media Bias Fact Check as two independent resources that rank news sources by bias and reliability; we do not ourselves define which sites do or don’t traffic in dis- and misinformation, nor do we make judgments about political leanings Admittedly, these two definitions defer the definition of misinformation to these other organizations, so that question is still validly raised. But they are pretty clear in the study what sources they rely on for those definitions. If you disagree that philosophically we cannot label a news source with those labels at all, then that's fair (though I disagree). If you disagree with the particular data sources they've chosen to do the labeling that's fair. But if you think this paper isn't clear with what it means for something to be "far-right", or "disinformation", I disagree. You can recurse on the methodologies to the various data providers, to see if you agree with them as well. ---- > - Measuring engagement is much more involved than looking at comment totals So noted, and they do more than looking at comment totals. They also note that there is more complexity > From CrowdTangle, we collected data on how many users follow these pages, and how many likes, comments, or other interactions each of these pages’ public posts have garnered. They explicitly note this as a limitation, and that they could do more comprehensive studies with more data, but that data is not publicly available > Our findings are limited by the lack of data provided by Facebook, which makes public information about engagement — reactions, shares, and comments — but not impressions — how many people actually saw a piece of content, spent time reading it, and so on. Such information would help researchers better analyze why far-right content is more engaging. ---- > On another note, does anyone else find it laughable that a researcher thinks they can so easily categorise political affiliations to internet communities? They do not associate political affiliations to internet communities. They assign those sources to "news sources", not to "political communities". ---- > I'm ripping on academics and the current state of research. The social sciences need to be reigned back in. I find you've done a poor job of it in this case, with critiques that don't well apply to this study (the best critiques are around the subjectivity of the labeling of sources, the worst are those that are simply not accurate to this study). I haven't reviewed the study in detail, so I'm not prepared to say it is high quality, but the criticisms you've leveled at it seem largely inaccurate based on my review of the study. https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-news-sources-on-facebook-more-engaging-e04a01efae90 https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-new...

minikites 6y ago

This is not the first article about how far-right misinformation is flourishing online and it would not be difficult to find corroborating articles, which I invite you to try.

why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
Time to post my favorite downvote farming comment! What is "far right"? Is there "near right"? "middle-reach right"? 'Far right' is just a BS title used to 'adjust' the perception of people that anyone not left wing is crazy extremist nutjob.
- minikites 6y ago
  This is far right: a national newscaster agreeing with a guest that the Republican Party will pick an actual fascist in 10-20 years: https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/1375251130586963968 https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/1375251130586963968. This is exactly the type of content that gets shared on Facebook and spreads as the article describes.
- pacerwpg 6y ago
  The article provides examples and cites the source of their classifications. "MARTIN: So when you talk about a far-right news source, do you feel comfortable giving us an example that we might recognize? I know what I certainly think of, but what are you thinking of? EDELSON: So some of the top-performing far-right news sources in our data set were things like Newsmax, Breitbart - that kind of media source. MARTIN: And you and your colleagues say that far-right content is the only partisan leaning in which misinformation actually drives more engagement. And there is no what you call misinformation penalty. Could you just talk a little bit more about that? So a misinformation penalty is what? Is that if you are demonstrated to be inaccurate or false, then what? People who are on the left side of the ledger would give you less credibility. Is that it? EDELSON: So we can't say exactly why it's happening. But what we see is that for left-leaning sources, for center sources, and even slightly right, the sources that have a reputation for spreading misinformation just don't engage as well. There could be a variety of reasons for that. But certainly, the simplest explanation would be that users don't find them as credible and don't want to engage with them."
- mcphage 6y ago
  > Is there "near right"? "middle-reach right"? It’s generally called Center-Right. Mitt Romney, John McCain would be good examples.
wtetzner 6y ago
I'm sure you can also find plenty of articles about how the Earth is flat. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
- minikites 6y ago
  You genuinely thought I was suggesting articles of that caliber?

staplung 6y ago

It's not meta analysis. Also, the effect size is rather large. What basis do you see for doubting how well the study was done?

calkuta 6y ago
The research is highly politicized, which is tip number one that it lacks merit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ncallaway 6y ago

> this meta analysis is done This wasn't a meta analysis. ---- > - What does far right mean? They obtained ratings from News Guard (https://www.newsguardtech.com/ https://www.newsguardtech.com/) and Media Bias Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com https://mediabiasfactcheck.com). You can go to those sites to review their ratings to determine how well you think they do at rating sites: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/right https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/right, or https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left. ---- > - What does misinformation mean? Again, that comes from NewsGuard and MediaBiasFactCheck, which you can investigate yourself. > Finally, we rely on NewsGuard and Media Bias Fact Check as two independent resources that rank news sources by bias and reliability; we do not ourselves define which sites do or don’t traffic in dis- and misinformation, nor do we make judgments about political leanings Admittedly, these two definitions defer the definition of misinformation to these other organizations, so that question is still validly raised. But they are pretty clear in the study what sources they rely on for those definitions. If you disagree that philosophically we cannot label a news source with those labels at all, then that's fair (though I disagree). If you disagree with the particular data sources they've chosen to do the labeling that's fair. But if you think this paper isn't clear with what it means for something to be "far-right", or "disinformation", I disagree. You can recurse on the methodologies to the various data providers, to see if you agree with them as well. ---- > - Measuring engagement is much more involved than looking at comment totals So noted, and they do more than looking at comment totals. They also note that there is more complexity > From CrowdTangle, we collected data on how many users follow these pages, and how many likes, comments, or other interactions each of these pages’ public posts have garnered. They explicitly note this as a limitation, and that they could do more comprehensive studies with more data, but that data is not publicly available > Our findings are limited by the lack of data provided by Facebook, which makes public information about engagement — reactions, shares, and comments — but not impressions — how many people actually saw a piece of content, spent time reading it, and so on. Such information would help researchers better analyze why far-right content is more engaging. ---- > On another note, does anyone else find it laughable that a researcher thinks they can so easily categorise political affiliations to internet communities? They do not associate political affiliations to internet communities. They assign those sources to "news sources", not to "political communities". ---- > I'm ripping on academics and the current state of research. The social sciences need to be reigned back in. I find you've done a poor job of it in this case, with critiques that don't well apply to this study (the best critiques are around the subjectivity of the labeling of sources, the worst are those that are simply not accurate to this study). I haven't reviewed the study in detail, so I'm not prepared to say it is high quality, but the criticisms you've leveled at it seem largely inaccurate based on my review of the study. https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-news-sources-on-facebook-more-engaging-e04a01efae90 https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-new...