Beyond engagement: demographic, temporal, and topic variation in misinformation exposure on Facebook across European media systemic regions

Despite evidence that exposure to fake news increases the likelihood of people perceiving it as accurate, knowledge about who is exposed to misinformation is mainly based on studies from the US around specific events. Due to media systemic, and temporal differences, this knowledge does not necessarily translate to an EU context or across different events. Also, most existing studies focus on engagement metrics such as likes, comments, or shares, rather than exposure, likely skewing results towards older demographics. Our study examines misinformation exposure across all 27 EU member states and the UK, to address these shortcomings and highlight differences from findings based on engagement metrics. We cover Facebook data from 2017 to 2022, across topics and events. Results show that women aged 35–44 were most exposed to misinformation, deviating from the older male profile typically associated with misinformation sharing. The study confirms expected differences in misinformation content, especially over time, across events, between media systemic regions, and to a lesser degree, by age and gender. Despite some listed limitations, the study identifies new misinformation patterns that can serve as a stepping stone for designing future cross-event and European-focused misinformation exposure and influence surveys and experiments.