Disinformation Echo-chambers on Facebook

Abstract

The information landscape has undergone dramatic changes with the expansion of the internet and online social networks. Optimistic views thought that online communication would foster a culture of participation. However, recent events suggest that social media platforms limit the diversity of the content by exposing users to pre-existing beliefs, which is known by the metaphor of echo chambers. In addition, users with malicious intent are using these platforms to deceive people and discredit the democratic process. To better understand these two phenomena, this chapter describes a computational method to analyze coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook groups on posts, URLs, and images. Our findings suggest that Facebook groups shared identical items almost simultaneously by different entities. In doing so, we could identify that these groups resemble disinformation echo chambers, where repeatedly sharing activities of disinformation narratives occur. The chapter concludes with theoretical and empirical implications.