Political Bias and Factualness in News Sharing across more than 100,000 Online Communities

Understand

As civil discourse increasingly takes place online, misinformation and the polarization of news shared in online communities have become ever more relevant concerns with real world harms across our society.

• Studying online news sharing at scale is challenging due to the massive volume of content which is shared by millions of users across thousands of communities.
• Therefore, existing research has largely focused on specific communities or specific interventions, such as bans.
• However, understanding the prevalence and spread of misinformation and polarization more broadly, across thousands of online communities, is critical for the development of governance strategies, interventions, and community design.