The biggest predictor of whether someone will share fake news isn’t their political affiliation — it’s their age.

A new study from researchers at Princeton University and New York University released on Wednesday found that people 65 years of age and over are seven times more likely to share fake news than those aged 18-29.

“Political scientists tend to favor explanations based on stable, deeply held partisan or ideological predispositions,” the study’s authors wrote. “It is possible that an entire cohort of Americans, now in their 60s and beyond, lacks the level of digital media literacy necessary to reliably determine the trustworthiness of news encountered online.”

The study examined the data of 1,331 respondents who agreed to share fields from their public Facebook profile along with their timeline posts, external links and likes. The researchers looked for links to a list of narrowly defined fake news sites and a list of fake news sites debunked by fact checking organizations. The researchers didn’t measure links to contested “hyperpartisan” websites, such as conservative media outlet Breitbart.

While age proved to be the best predictor of who shared what was determined to be fake news, researchers also found conservative users were more likely to share fake news. Accelerated by algorithms that sort news based on user preferences, social media users tend to share news that reflects their existing beliefs, a phenomenon known as “confirmation bias,” and they make posts that affirm and signal their identity, [the report found/past reports have found].

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/age-not-politics-predicts-who-shares-fake-news-facebook-study-n957246?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

WASHINGTON — Hours after he was sworn in as America’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, swayed together to a rendition of the Frank Sinatra classic “My Way,” as hundreds of their wealthiest and most influential supporters held aloft smartphones to capture the Trumps’ first dance following the inauguration.

Serhiy Kivalov, a Ukrainian lawmaker known for pro-Russian initiatives, took photos of the dance, as well as of his coveted tickets and passes to the soiree where it took place, the Liberty Ball at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, posting them on Facebook and declaring that “it was an honor” to attend.

He was one of at least a dozen Ukrainian political and business figures who made their way to Washington for the inauguration, several of whom attended the Liberty Ball. Most had more on their dance cards than just parties.

They attended meetings and orchestrated encounters at Trump International Hotel with influential Republican members of Congress and close allies of President Trump. Representing a range of views, including a contingent seen as sympathetic to Moscow, they positioned themselves as brokers who could help solve one of the thorniest foreign policy problems facing the new administration — the ugly military stalemate between Russia and Ukraine and the tough sanctions imposed on Moscow following its seizure of Crimea.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/ukraine-donald-trump-inauguration.html

Last month, Politico asked how Elizabeth Warren could “avoid a Clinton redux—written off as too unlikable before her campaign gets off the ground.” The piece (written by a woman, sigh) ran the day the Massachusetts senator announced she was “exploring” a run for the White House. No time to lose, apparently, when it comes to setting the narrative. A supersmart ambitious Democratic woman? Aroint thee, witch!

Because what is likability if not a deference to men—with a self-deprecating smile? A likable woman doesn’t talk too loud or too much. She doesn’t take up too much space, isn’t too sexy or too dowdy, and gracefully eludes confrontation. In short, she doesn’t demand anything that men would rather keep for themselves, be it political power or sexual autonomy or the right to be safe after having a couple of drinks. A likable woman doesn’t challenge women, either, by reminding them of the compromises they’ve made and the edges they’ve trimmed off their personalities.

Recently, though, there have been encouraging signs that women have stopped looking over their shoulders every five minutes for male approval—and it’s driving conservative men berserk.

Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Everything about her sends them up a wall. She’s young, female, brown, and left-wing—the polar opposite of Congress’s white, male, right-wing oldsters. She says she’s working-class but somehow has nice clothes. She’s made a couple of slips in interviews, so obviously she’s an ignorant ditz. Grover Norquist even compares her proposal to raise taxes on the top income brackets to slavery.

Most recently, conservatives leaked a video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop during college. Maybe they thought a young woman looking carefree and adorable was the equivalent of appearing in soft-core porn—something former Republican senator Scott Brown actually did, by the way, without suffering any harm to his reputation as a solid all-around good guy with a pickup truck. On Lou Dobbs’s show, Republican strategist Ed Rollins called her a “little girl.”

The new congresswoman’s response to all this was to tweet a video of herself dancing into her office. Then, when Republicans booed her for voting for Nancy Pelosi to chair the House, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted merrily: “Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me, fellas.” The old ways of chastising uppity women, evidently, are backfiring.

https://www.thenation.com/article/aoc-tlaib-warren-womens-march/?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter