On average, those Facebook users shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances, a peer-reviewed journal.
Conservatives were more likely to share stories from fake news domains, the study said, with a pro-Donald Trump orientation in 2016. Still, it found that even controlling for the effect of ideology, partisanship, education and the number of web links shared, older folks were more likely to share fake news than younger people.
"No other demographic characteristic seems to have a consistent effect on sharing fake news, making our age finding that much more notable," authors Andrew Guess, Jonathan Nagler and Joshua Tucker wrote.
The study relied on users' Facebook sharing history instead of asking them to self-report that history. Using online polling firm YouGov, it asked respondents to provide access to parts of their Facebook profiles, including timeline posts and external links.
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