The research draws on every tweet posted between 2017 and 2022 by every member of parliament with a Twitter (now X) account in 26 countries: 17 EU members including Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, but also the UK, US and Australia. It then compared that dataset – 32m tweets from 8,198 MPs – with international political science databases containing detailed information on the parties involved, such as their position on the left-right spectrum and their degree of populism.
The data showed conclusively that far-right populism was “the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation”, they concluded, with MPs from centre-right, centre-left and far-left populist parties “not linked” to the practice. The researchers noted that they would not be able to expand their dataset of MPs’ posts on X because the platform – now owned by the US billionaire Elon Musk, who has made no secret of his support for far-right parties – no longer offers data access.
Far-Right Populists Much More Likely Than The Left To Spread Fake News – Study
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Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 11 February 2025
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