False information spreads much faster and farther than the truth on Twitter—and although it is tempting to blame automated “bot” programs for this, human users are more at fault. These are two conclusions researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology drew from their recent study of how news travels on the microblogging site. Their findings, published this week in Science, explain a lot about how conspiracy theories (as well as misleading and downright incorrect information) drown out hard, clear facts on social media.
