{"id":12360,"date":"2019-02-13T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/?p=12360"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:05:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:05:35","slug":"why-fears-of-fake-news-are-overhyped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/02\/13\/why-fears-of-fake-news-are-overhyped\/","title":{"rendered":"Why fears of fake news are overhyped"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"479\" src=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-700x479.jpg\" alt=\"Fake news on a laptop screen.\" class=\"wp-image-9646\"\/><figcaption> <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/fake-fake-news-media-laptop-1909821\/\">(CC0\/pixel2013\/Pixabay)<\/a>\n\n\n\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A study conducted by U-M<em>\u00a0<\/em>professor of public policy <strong>Brendan Nyhan<\/strong> suggests that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/02\/11\/why-fears-of-fake-news-are-overhyped.html\">the effect of fake news on the 2016 election has been overestimated<\/a>. Using laptop\/desktop web traffic data from a nationally representative online panel allowed Nyhan and his colleagues to measure who visited fake news sites before the 2016 election with unprecedented precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Relatively few people\u00a0consumed\u00a0this form of content directly during the 2016 campaign, and\u00a0even fewer\u00a0did so before the 2018 election,&#8221; writes Nyhan. &#8220;Fake news consumption is concentrated among a narrow subset of Americans with the most conservative news diets. And, most notably, no credible evidence exists that exposure to fake news changed the outcome of the 2016 election.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Nyhan, the most worrisome misinformation in U.S. politics remains the old-fashioned kind: false and misleading statements made by elected officials who dominate news coverage and wield the powers of government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study conducted by U-M\u00a0professor of public policy Brendan Nyhan suggests that the effect of fake news on the 2016 election has been overestimated. Using laptop\/desktop web traffic data from a nationally representative online panel allowed Nyhan and his colleagues to measure who visited fake news sites before the 2016 election with unprecedented precision. &#8220;Relatively few people\u00a0consumed\u00a0this form\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/02\/13\/why-fears-of-fake-news-are-overhyped\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_umich_oidc_access":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,130,65],"class_list":["post-12360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-fake-news","tag-research","tag-social"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-e1534949327501.jpg",600,411,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-200x137.jpg",200,137,true],"medium":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-292x200.jpg",292,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-768x526.jpg",665,455,true],"large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-700x479.jpg",600,411,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-e1534949327501.jpg",600,411,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-e1534949327501.jpg",600,411,false],"excerpt-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-200x140.jpg",200,140,true],"themonic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-60x42.jpg",60,42,true],"ioslider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-658x300.jpg",658,300,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-665x455.jpg",665,455,true],"400x250-crop":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/fake-news-detector-algorithm-works-better-than-a-human-e1534949327501.jpg",365,250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"News Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/author\/mitnewsadm\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A study conducted by U-M\u00a0professor of public policy Brendan Nyhan suggests that the effect of fake news on the 2016 election has been overestimated. Using laptop\/desktop web traffic data from a nationally representative online panel allowed Nyhan and his colleagues to measure who visited fake news sites before the 2016 election with unprecedented precision. &#8220;Relatively&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12363,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360\/revisions\/12363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}