ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF FALSE INFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIETY

The spread of fake news on social media platforms has adverse consequences to the creation and dissemination of knowledge as well as peoples’ trust. This paper endeavors to fill this gap of knowledge to distinguish the engagement with the misinformation contrary to accurate information and the findings which are so crucial in providing the appropriate direction of combating fake news. The main purpose of this research is to understand the effects of misinformation, as well as correct information, on users of the major social media platforms. The objectives of the study include numerating such actions as like, share, and comment on false and true content and also evaluating the impact of content verification in users’ actions. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in an attempt to answer the research questions. Data was gathered using web scraping and API permission from the three primary social media platforms, these included Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using hash tags concerning COVID-19. The social media data which includes likes, shares and comments were summarized using descriptive statistics, t – tests and regression. Also, the analysis included content verification status to determine its significance to the user interaction. This research proves that the amount of audience engagement on misinformation posts is higher than accurate information post. To be precise, fake news received 433 ‘likes’, 176 ‘shares’ and 55 comments while real news gained 181 ‘likes’, 76 ‘shares’ and 28 comments. These differences are as well supported by statistical tests which showed that this finding is statistically significant. This means that interaction rates are high in posts of users who have been verified thus verifying statuses directly relate to increased engagement. In order to reduce the ‘fake news’ effect, social media sites should strengthen measures of validating posts and increase the circulation of real news. Public policy makers and platform administers should come up with and deploy effective no-trace strategies for combating and preventing fake news and creating an informed society.