Consider what happened in 2016 on Facebook, the platform that adults over 65 are most likely to use. Researchers from Princeton and New York University determined that sharing articles from “fake news” sources — outlets that propagate false or misleading content masquerading as legitimate news — was rare. But older users were much more likely to engage with fake sources, and those over 50 were overrepresented among the “supersharers” responsible for disseminating 80 percent of fake content. Such findings stirred particular concern because older adults are far more likely to register and vote than younger cohorts. “They have an outsized effect on our democracy,” Nadia Brashier, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Harvard University said of older adults.

Source: New York Times September 11, 2020 09:56 UTC