Who shares fake news? The consumption and distribution of information among adolescents and its relationship to hate speech

Abstract

Young people might be especially vulnerable to fake news as they tend to get informed mainly online. Besides, much of the content of these fake news may contain hate speech and therefore support discrimination against minorities. This article presents the results of eight European focus groups and a regionally representative survey about how young people access and share fake news information online carried out in the framework of the european project H2020 RAYUELA. The results show a general preference among young people to get information from social networks despite admitting that traditional media are more reliable because the former use more videos, congregate more people and post comments with opposing opinions. We also describe differences between teenagers sharing fake news on purpose or unintentionally. The latter tend to use hand devices (i.e., smartphone, tablet), while the former admit having occasionally become offenders of online hate speech (sexism, racism and LGTBIphobia).

Keywords: fake news, internet, hate speech, online information, teenagers,
cyberhate.