The spreading of misinformation online

The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media fa= cilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, an= d narratives. However, the World Wide Web (WWW) also allows for the rapid d= issemination of unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories that often e= licit rapid, large, but naive social responses such as the recent case of J= ade Helm 15-where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as = the beginning of a new civil war in the United States. In this work, we add= ress the determinants governing misinformation spreading through a thorough= quantitative analysis. In particular, we focus on how Facebook users consu= me information related to two distinct narratives: scientific and conspirac= y news. We find that, although consumers of scientific and conspiracy stori= es present similar consumption patterns with respect to content, cascade dy= namics differ. Selective exposure to content is the primary driver of conte= nt diffusion and generates the formation of homogeneous clusters, i.e., "ec= ho chambers." Indeed, homogeneity appears to be the primary driver for the = diffusion of contents and each echo chamber has its own cascade dynamics. F= inally, we introduce a data-driven percolation model mimicking rumor spread= ing and we show that homogeneity and polarization are the main determinants= for predicting cascades' size.