ABSTRACT
The following concerns the “misinformation problem” on social media during the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Employing data journalism techniques, it develops a form of cross-platform analysis that is attuned to both commensurability as well as platform specificity. It analyses the top-ranked political content on seven platforms and finds that each marginalizes mainstream media and mainstreams the fringe. TikTok parodies mainstream media, while 4chan and Reddit dismiss it and direct users to alternative influence networks and extreme YouTube content. Twitter prefers the hyperpartisan over it. Facebook’s “fake news” problem concerns declining amounts of mainstream media referenced. Instagram has influencers dominating user engagement. By comparison, Google Web Search buoys special interest sites. It concludes with a discussion of how platforms filter the content through increasing editorial intervention.
