Title: Junk News on Military Affairs and National Security: Social Media Disinformation Campaigns Against US Military Personnel and Veterans,
Abstract: Social media provides political news and information for both active duty
military personnel and veterans. We analyze the subgroups of Twitter and
Facebook users who spend time consuming junk news from websites that target US
military personnel and veterans with conspiracy theories, misinformation, and
other forms of junk news about military affairs and national security issues.
(1) Over Twitter we find that there are significant and persistent interactions
between current and former military personnel and a broad network of extremist,
Russia-focused, and international conspiracy subgroups. (2) Over Facebook, we
find significant and persistent interactions between public pages for military
and veterans and subgroups dedicated to political conspiracy, and both sides of
the political spectrum. (3) Over Facebook, the users who are most interested in
conspiracy theories and the political right seem to be distributing the most
junk news, whereas users who are either in the military or are veterans are
among the most sophisticated news consumers, and share very little junk news
through the network.