The Propagation of Misinformation in Social Media: A Cross-platform Analysis

There Is Growing Awareness About How Social Media Circulate Extreme Viewpoints And Turn Up The Temperature Of Public Debate. Posts That Exhibit Agitation Garner Disproportionate Engagement. Within This Clamour, Fringe Sources And Viewpoints Are Mainstreaming, And Mainstream Media Are Marginalized. This Book Takes Up The Mainstreaming Of The Fringe And The Marginalization Of The Mainstream. In A Cross-platform Analysis Of Google Web Search, Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, 4chan And Tiktok, We Found That Hyperpartisan Web Operators, Alternative Influencers And Ambivalent Commentators Are In Ascendency. The Book Can Be Read As A Form Of Platform Criticism. It Puts On Display The Current State Of Information Online, Noting How Social Media Platforms Have Taken On The Mantle Of Accidental Authorities, Privileging Their Own On-platform Performers And At The Same Time Adjudicating Between Claims Of What Is Considered Acceptable Discourse. Frontmatter -- Table Of Contents -- Preface -- 1 “serious Queries” And “editorial Epistemologies”. How Social Media Are Contending With Misinformation -- 2 Problematic Information In Google Web Search? Scrutinizing The Results From U.s. Election-related Queries -- 3 The Scale Of Facebook’s Problem Depends Upon How “fake News” Is Classified -- 4 When Misinformation Migrates. Cross-platform Posting, Youtube And The Deep Vernacular Web -- 5 Fringe Players On Political Twitter. Source-sharing Dynamics, Partisanship And Problematic Actors -- 6 Twitter As Accidental Authority. How A Platform Assumed An Adjudicative Role During The Covid-19 Pandemic -- 7 The Earnest Platform . U.s. Presidential Candidates, Covid-19, And Social Issues On Instagram -- 8 A Fringe Mainstreamed, Or Tracing Antagonistic Slang Between 4chan And Breitbart Before And After Trump -- 9 Political Tiktok . Playful Performance, Ambivalent Critique And Event-commentary -- Afterword: The Misinformation Problem And The Deplatforming Debates -- Bibliography -- Index Ed. By Richard Rogers. Includes Index. In English.