What is Misinformation?

It is formally defined as:

"False information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead."

It is evident that, with the sheer amount of discourse taking place on social media platforms, seemingly unbelievable misinformation can slip through the cracks of moderation and explode in popularity. Claims disputing the true lethality of the COVID-19 coronavirus or the validity of the 2020 election have taken sites like Twitter and Reddit by storm, prompting data science communities to analyze how such claims were conceived and spread. We attempt to explore how these kinds of claims spread, if at all, and compared these three different form of diffusion to each other.

Why is it Important?

One study published by Science found that false news and information travel "farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth". This can negatively impact the spread of actual valid information specifically during times of turmoil or civil unrest. Not only this, but there are increasing concerns among everyday Americans about the spread of misinformation online that only seems to be increasing. The spread of misinformation online has really taken off in the last 5 years, but we are already seeing the detrimental effects of these kinds of actions.

Our Objective

We aim to look at the diffusion of content on Reddit, contrasting two kinds of misinformation (political and urban myth) with that of scientific information. With this, we analyze the possibility of the existence of echo chambers on this platform. Further, we are interested to see how users of certain subreddits behave- do users in a certain "niche" of subreddits act or behave differently than users in another "niche" of subreddits?