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Nov 6, 2019 · Here are the top 10 fake-news stories of 2019: Advertisement. 10. "Joe Biden Calls Trump Supporters 'Dregs of Society'" Facebook. 9. "NYC coroner who declared the death of Jeffrey...
Dec 21, 2019 · Here are 10 stories from 2019 of disinformation running rampant. Fake News In High Places: The 'Meddling Ukraine' Theory This unfounded theory flows directly from the White House.
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- Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK. This was the most viewed of all the fake news with an outstanding 29,202,552.80 estimated views and 1,638,165 interactions.
- Pelosi Diverts $2.4 Billion From Social Security To Cover Impeachment Costs. This piece of news had an estimated 24,606,644.49 and 1,380,350 interactions.
- Ocasio-Cortez Proposes Nationwide Motorcycle Ban. This fake news had 12,380,492.64 and 694,504 interactions. The news, however, has been tagged as false by snopes.com.
- Trump Is Now Trying To Get Mike Pence Impeached. This article had 10,888,995.03 estimated views and 610,836 interactions. However, there is absolutely no proof to support it.
- Overview
- Cancer, unproven cures and vaccines
- Consequences of misinformation
A cabal of doctors is hiding the cure for cancer, berries are more effective than vaccines, and eating instant noodles can kill you: These are some of the claims from the internet's most viral fake health news in 2019.
Health misinformation was a big deal this year. Facing pressure from lawmakers, doctors and health advocates, social media platforms made sweeping policy changes to ban or limit the spread of false health information that had gone unchecked for over a decade.
To get a sense of the landscape of fake health news this year, NBC News compiled a list of the most viral health misinformation and analyzed the data to see where it spread and how people engaged with it.
The most viral pieces of fake health news pushed far-reaching conspiracies between governments and medical communities and suggested ditching common medical treatment of life-threatening diseases for unproven cures. The top 50 articles garnered more than 12 million shares, comments and reactions this year, mostly on Facebook.
NBC News' analysis was modeled after the methodology used in two recent studies: a 2018 study in which researchers from the Medical University of Gdansk measured the most shared stories including health misinformation in Poland and a 2019 study in which Stanford researchers tracked the online activity surrounding the false idea that cannabis cures cancer.
NBC News used the social media analysis tool BuzzSumo to search for keywords related to the most common diseases and causes of death in the United States. The search was widened to include health topics routinely targeted by misinformation campaigns: vaccines, fluoride and natural cures. Only articles with more than 25,000 engagements were considered; 80 made up the final list.
Eighty percent of people online are using the internet to search for health information. An NBC News analysis raises concerns about just what information people might have found in 2019.
The most viral health misinformation in 2019 was on the topics of cancer, unproven cures and vaccines, according to the review. In relation to some topics, including cancer and fluoride, fake health news dominated overall news.
The most engaged-with article about cancer in 2019, for example, pushed a stew of medical conspiracies, including one positing that "Big Pharma," a nebulous group that includes doctors and federal health organizations, is hiding a cure for cancer.
The April article, "Cancer industry not looking for a cure; they're too busy making money," garnered 5.4 million engagements on Natural News, a website owned and operated by Mike Adams, a dietary supplement purveyor who goes by the moniker "The Health Ranger." The article found its widest audience on Facebook, where Natural News had nearly 3 million followers until it was banned in June for using "misleading or inaccurate information" to attract engagement, according to a statement that Facebook sent Ars Technica.
The next closest article about cancer was a legitimate (though overhyped) report from a Florida Fox affiliate on an experimental breast cancer vaccine. The article was shared by 1.8 million users.
Overall, cancer was the subject of the most popular kind of health misinformation, with viral articles promoting unproven cures for cancer making up roughly a third of our list. Marijuana was one of the most popular alleged cures in the genre, which correlates with audience demand: Stanford University researchers recently found that online searches for cannabis and cancer had grown at 10 times the rate of searches for other standard medical therapies.
The impact of health misinformation can be enormous.
The most common concerns among health professionals are compliance with health treatments or prevention efforts, said Nat Gyenes, who leads the Digital Health Lab at the technology nonprofit Meedan and researches technology and health at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
According to non-profit organization Avaaz, in 2019 alone, the top 100 fake news stories found on Facebook have been viewed a whopping 150 million times. Odds are, you’ve probably seen...
Nov 8, 2019 · Here are the top 10 fake-news stories of 2019: 10. “Joe Biden Calls Trump Supporters ‘Dregs of Society'” Facebook. 9. “NYC coroner who declared the death of Jeffrey Epstein a suicide...
Jan 13, 2020 · Media, Politics & Government. Fake news and fact-checking: 7 studies you should know about. We spotlight seven research studies published in 2019 that examine fake news from multiple angles, including what makes fact-checking most effective.
