Data reveals big picture of the French 2017 presidential election: Social media, fake news, and political communities

CNRS and EHESS researchers analyzed nearly 60 million political tweets posted during the 2017 presidential election in France. They noted that fake news flagged by the Le Monde Decodex fact-checking website accounted for only 0.1 percent of all Twitter content, and that 73 percent of the bogus information was spread by two political communities. Their findings are published in PLOS ONE (September 19, 2018).