Far-right populists much more likely than the left to spread fake news – study Amplifying misinformation is now part of radical right strategy, says Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries.
Far-right populists are significantly more likely to spread fake news on social media than politicians from mainstream or far-left parties, according to a study which argues that amplifying misinformation is now part and parcel of radical right strategy.
“Radical right populists are using misinformation as a tool to destabilise democracies and gain political advantage,” said Petter Törnberg of the University of Amsterdam, a co-author of the study with Juliana Chueri of the Dutch capital’s Free University.
Misinformation was less useful to far-left populists, who focus more on economic grievances, but far-right populists’ emphasis on cultural grievances and opposition to democratic norms was “fertile ground” for misinformation, the authors said.
The research suggested that rather than the anti-elitism of populists generally, it was “the exclusionary ideologies and hostility towards democratic institutions of radical right populism” that lay behind most misinformation campaigns, Törnberg said.
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