Title: Fake news, propaganda spread quickly on social media - The Daily Universe
Headings: Fake news, propaganda spread quickly on social media
Fake news, propaganda spread quickly on social media
‘Fake News’
Hackers and their influence
Voter manipulation

Content: While the technique can be used by businesses for marketing posts, it can also be harnessed by internet trolls to spread fake news through velocity, volume and confirmation bias. “You can buy bots for anything, and it’s relatively easy for someone with basic programming understanding to create a simple bot that can tweet and retweet messages thousands of times,” Morin said. Leading up to the 2016 presidential elections, Russian hackers used social media bot accounts to push misinformation that likely contributed to President Donald Trump’s victory, according to a study by Ohio State University. According to the study, U.S. citizens who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 were most affected — 10 percent cast ballots for Trump, 4 percent changed political affiliation and 8 percent did not vote due to fake news statements. Bots and trolls have also continued spreading fake news to influence politics, which has led to social media platforms taking action. In October, Twitter banned about 1,500 accounts created by right-wing internet trolls for spreading misinformation that midterm elections, to be held on Nov. 6, were on Nov. 7, according to The New York Times. The anonymity provided by the internet often causes people to act out in ways they might not in person, according to J. Reuben Clark Law School associate professor Stephanie Bair. This infographic provides information on some malicious social media accounts and tactics used to bully and mislead others. ( Sam Bigelow)
The accounts — dubbed NPCs after “non-playable characters” in video games — originated from alt-right Reddit and 4chan message boards. The fictional personas, according to the Times, were identified by gray cartoon faces and their penchant for imitating and mocking liberal rhetoric.