Dutch junk news on Reddit and 4chan/pol

This chapter investigates the presence of junk news on Reddit and 4chan’s /pol/ subforum, spaces often described as “alternative” owing to their lower user numbers and subcultural ethos compared to the likes of Facebook. We first delineate Dutch spheres within the two spaces over multiple years, finding a rising number of posts within Reddit’s Dutch sphere and a stagnant yet non-negligible number of Dutch posters on 4chan/pol/. We then categorise and analyse what URLs are shared to gauge the presence of junk news domains. We find that Reddit seems fairly resilient against the presence of disin... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Hagen, Sal
Jokubauskaitė, Emilija
Dokumenttyp: book-chapter
Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
Verlag/Hrsg.: Amsterdam University Press
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27408208
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.5117/9789463724838_ch06

This chapter investigates the presence of junk news on Reddit and 4chan’s /pol/ subforum, spaces often described as “alternative” owing to their lower user numbers and subcultural ethos compared to the likes of Facebook. We first delineate Dutch spheres within the two spaces over multiple years, finding a rising number of posts within Reddit’s Dutch sphere and a stagnant yet non-negligible number of Dutch posters on 4chan/pol/. We then categorise and analyse what URLs are shared to gauge the presence of junk news domains. We find that Reddit seems fairly resilient against the presence of disinformation or other forms of junk news, save for the appearance of some hyperpartisan sources and incidental malicious users. 4chan/pol/ shows a somewhat more problematic situation, returning a larger presence of (foreign) junk news sources.