How the Supply of Fake News Affected Consumer Behavior during the 2016 US Election

We characterize the effect of fake news on online browsing during the 2016 US presidential election. We estimate that weekday increases of 10 fake news articles — that were confirmed to be false by third-party services — increased the incidence of fake news site visits by 3.0%. To address endogeneity, we employ two approaches that attempt to isolate exogenous variation in fake news supply. We also estimate that weekday 10-article increases in fake news increase the odds of visiting one or more fake news sites by 3.7%. Overall, this evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of fake news production in reaching a diverse set of consumers.

Keywords: media economics, 2016 US election, fake news

JEL Classification: L82, P16

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Doshi, Anil Rajnikant and Raghavan, Sharat and Weiss, Rebecca and Petitt, Eric, How the Supply of Fake News Affected Consumer Behavior during the 2016 US Election (October 18, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3093397 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3093397