Staff Reports
A study revealed that the spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media did not influence the results of the 2016 presidential election. One of the study's authors stated that the allegations about Russia's alleged involvement were over-hyped.
According to a report by the Washington Post, a study conducted by a New York University research center found that the actions taken by Russia during the presidential election didn't have a significant impact on the attitudes or behavior of voters.
The study, which was published in Nature Communications, analyzed how Russia used social media to spread misinformation and disinformation during the presidential election in 2016. It found that only a small number of users were exposed to accounts that were identified as being part of Russia's efforts.
Highly partisan Republicans were more exposed to the posts and accounts linked to Russia than the non-Republicans. Despite the large amount of exposure, the study found that the actions of Russia did not have a significant influence on the behavior of voters or their political attitudes.
The authors of the study also caution against drawing too much conclusions from the findings of the investigation, since it did not look into other social media platforms such as Facebook.
One of the study's authors, Josh Tucker, said that the allegations about Russia's alleged involvement were over-hyped. He noted that the country's actions were concentrated in a small section of the population, and the people who were exposed to them were more likely to support Donald Trump.
The study also found that the exposure to the posts and accounts linked to Russia did not change the people's attitudes or their political beliefs.
The study conducted by the Center for Social Media & Politics at New York University revealed that the operations that Russia carried out on Twitter during the presidential election weren't very effective. However, it's important to note that this analysis only looked at one aspect of the country's foreign influence efforts.
The study's authors also noted that it's still important to monitor the activities of foreign groups on social media to gain a deeper understanding of their goals.
A drop in January revealed that Twitter had little influence operations against Americans, but then it started to favor leftist groups and politicians.
Journalist Matt Taibbi claimed that in August 2017, Twitter employees believed that they didn't have the same issues as Facebook after it removed hundreds of accounts that were suspected of being linked to Russia.
In March, Twitter revealed that it had only 22 potential accounts that were linked to Russia, and it had 179 others with possible connections.
After Senator Mark Warner, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized Twitter's report, the company's vice president of public policy noted that the company could be pressured to continue producing content.
In an email to Jack Dorsey, the company's CEO, the public policy official noted that Warner was using the issue of foreign influence operations to maintain political pressure on the company.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Breitbart.
