The world's digital information ecosystem continues to struggle with the spread of misinformation. Prior work has suggested that users who consistently disseminate a disproportionate amount of low-credibility content -- so-called superspreaders -- are at the center of this problem. We quantitatively confirm this hypothesis and introduce simple metrics to predict the top misinformation superspreaders several months into the future. We then conduct a qualitative review to characterize the most prolific superspreaders and analyze their sharing behaviors. Superspreaders include pundits with large followings, low-credibility media outlets, personal accounts affiliated with those media outlets, and a range of influencers. They are primarily political in nature and use more toxic language than the typical user sharing misinformation. We also find concerning evidence suggesting that Twitter may be overlooking prominent superspreaders. We hope this work will further public understanding of bad actors and promote steps to mitigate their negative impacts on healthy digital discourse.
翻译:世界上的数字信息生态系统仍在与错误信息的扩散进行斗争。 先前的工作表明,持续传播大量低可信度内容的用户 -- -- 所谓的超级传播者 -- -- 处于这一问题的中心。 我们量化地确认这一假设,并引入简单的衡量标准,以预测未来几个月最大的错误信息超级传播者。 然后,我们进行定性审查,以描述最丰富的超级传播者的特点,并分析其共享行为。超级传播者包括大量追随者、低可信度媒体渠道、与这些媒体渠道有联系的个人账户以及一系列影响者。他们主要是政治性的,使用比典型分享错误信息的用户更有毒的语言。我们还发现,有证据表明,推特可能忽略了突出的超级传播者。 我们希望这项工作将进一步加深公众对坏角色的认识,促进采取措施,减轻其对健康的数字谈话的负面影响。