The spread of dubious headlines on social media is common across the political spectrum, according to new research from Cornell University.
After studying nearly 11 million social media posts containing news links across seven platforms, the team found that a user’s posts with lower-quality news links received more engagement than their higher-quality news posts. This pattern was observed on both conservative- and liberal-leaning platforms.
The study also found that news shared on platforms with more conservative user bases is, on average, lower in quality. On all platforms, news aligning with the dominant political slant received more engagement.
“Many had argued that people on the right were better at getting engagement on social media, but we find that it totally depends on the platform,” said David Rand, professor of information science, marketing and management communication, and psychology. “When it comes to the advantage of lower-quality news, on the other hand, it’s happening on both sides.”
Accessible to academics
Rand noted that previous research on this topic often stemmed from a 2018 paper in Science that studied only Twitter (now X), as its API made data easily accessible to academics.
Rand and his colleagues analysed a greater cross-section, looking at seven platforms: BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X (considered more left-leaning or neutral); and TruthSocial, Gab, and GETTR (considered right-leaning). The team analysed every post from January 2024 that contained a news link, totalling nearly 11 million posts. News quality was gauged using a 2023 ratings system that scored over 11,000 news sites.
The key takeaway was that across all seven platforms, the average user received more engagement on their lower-quality news posts. This pattern was even observed on Mastodon, which does not use a ranking algorithm, suggesting the trend is driven by user preference, not just algorithmic promotion.
“So, we can say our result is completely not about differences in the characteristics of the poster,” Rand said, “but it’s really just about the characteristics of the content. It’s not the algorithm; it’s not the user who’s posting it: A user’s posts with lower-quality links get more engagement.”
The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
