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All about Twitter Fake News and How Bots Spread Lies

How many of us have got into the trap of encountering fake news and abiding by it considering it to be the true one?
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How many of us have got into the trap of encountering fake news on Twitter and abiding by it, considering it to be true?

I am sure most of us must have experienced it at least once in life, wherein, later on, we come across the actual truth.

Having the right information is the basic right of any person, and Twitter’s job is to keep people updated about the happenings happening worldwide.  But are you sure about the credibility of the news? As nowadays, the news which is fake spreads faster than true one. 

It has become difficult for people to distinguish between fake and real news on Twitter. Researchers have found that a fake story has more chance to go viral than a true one as fake news posters use social media scheduler to post news. Fake news receives 70 percent more retweets than real news.

Twitter is an application for people to share their opinions regarding certain aspects of a global platform. But they themselves are unaware that the news they are sharing or the news that they think is true might be Fake News.

Fake news seems to outperform real news. Fake news is not just a thing of bots but also of humans. In fact, 4.5 million tweets and retweets took place during 2006-17.

Aside from that, if you want to automate your Twitter postings, you can schedule tweets using RecurPost. It includes a sophisticated AI-powered technology that enables simultaneous automatic social media publishing on several platforms.

 

What is Fake news?

Fake news refers to stories that are not true in reality. This news spreads so as to make people believe something which is untrue.

There can be various reasons that can lead to fake news, and all of these are ethically wrong.

Twitter Fake news by recurpost as best social media scheduler

 

Who to blame?

The research was conducted on Twitter accounts about the suspected ones who are spreading those fake stories.

We realized that apart from billions of humans using social media to post updates, there are bots residing within and knows how to delete twitter account or how to operate Twitter account.

The research found that these bots pretend to be human and spread false news.

You must be thinking bots to solely responsible for spreading fake news, well that’s not the case.  It was also the people who were spreading and retweeting the fake news. 

Wondering why people spread fake news?

We, humans, are undoubtedly smart. However, we are also highly emotional beings which leads us to share and spread fake news faster on a global platform.

There are multiple reasons for people spreading fake news. One of them can be with the motive of humiliating others or insufficient awareness of the twitter trending topics.

Fake news topics are different from true ones. Fake news tweets replies use words like a surprise, these kinds of words attract the attention of people. Fake account handlers know how to download twitter videos which leads to misguiding much news.

Who to blame for twitter fake news by recurpost as best social media scheduler

 

How did we come to know about Fake News?

  • The accounts that spread Fake news were made months before they were used. The average time between registration and use was around 177 days.
  • A group of main accounts spread the news that would mislead people. 
  • Auxiliary accounts amplify the fake news pushed by the main accounts.
  • Most of the accounts were automated. Individuals used to spread true news or would make some changes in the words of the reposted content.
How do we come to know twitter fake news by recurpost as best social media scheduler

 

How to identify Fake news accounts?

There are two types of accounts that need to be analyzed and identified. One is the main account, and the other is the auxiliary account. The main account has around 10,000 followers, but fewer of the following accounts. 

Auxiliary accounts are vice-versa; they have fewer followers and follow more than 10,000 accounts. Main accounts publish new Tweets. Auxiliary accounts retweet the content from other accounts.

Main accounts were the ones spreading the Fake news all over, sometimes pretending to be political parties, with a motive to degrade their targets. The default language of these accounts is either English or Russian. 

The motive of auxiliary accounts is to spread the news created by the main accounts by retweeting.

Identifying fake accounts as twitter fake news by recurpost as best social media scheduler

 

Fake news bots

A fake news bot is an automated program designed to disseminate false or misleading information on social media platforms, such as Twitter. These bots can be programmed to follow a tweet scheduler, allowing them to post content at specific times, amplifying the reach and impact of their deceptive messages.

Social media networking sites do not like bots, as they make social media networks less attractive and appealing, such as Twitter and Facebook. Twitter regularly takes action against Fake news bots & Twitter handle

Fake news bots target people who have an abundance of followers. They do so by mentioning or replying to them with content that includes the link of low credibility content. 

 

A checklist to catch Bots

  • Have similar name accounts
  • Created on the same date
  • Use of the same type of phrasing
  • They follow each other
  • Have similar bios
  • Make the same types of Grammer mistakes
  • Post links to the same sites
  • Uses images or photos of other people
  • Active on parallel timings

 

Beware of the Fake news!

Though social media networks provide each one of us with ample information that we should be aware of, we should ensure to cross-verify the credibility of news before we share it any further even Twitter new update will make sure that people won’t share any fake news.

When you share fake news, you not only share a piece of untrue information, but you will also misrepresent something wrong, which will influence you and other people against the right!

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