Protocol/Medium -“A new study shows that before and after the election, far-right misinformation pages drew more engagement than all other partisan news. In the months before and after the 2020 election, far-right pages that are known to spread misinformation consistently garnered more engagement on Facebook than any other partisan news, according to a New York University study published Wednesday. The study looked at Facebook engagement for news sources across the political spectrum between Aug. 10, 2020 and Jan. 11, 2021, and found that on average, far-right pages that regularly trade in misinformation raked in 65% more engagement per follower than other far-right pages that aren’t known for spreading misinformation. That finding was specific to the far right. In every other category — including far left, slightly left, center and slightly right — misinformation pages saw significantly less engagement than non-misinformation pages of the same political slant. The research casts doubt on Facebook’s efforts to limit the spread of election misinformation leading up to Election Day in November and in the aftermath of the January attack on the U.S. Capitol. Far from a barrier to engagement, the researchers wrote, “Being a consistent spreader of far-right misinformation appears to confer a significant advantage.” The researchers analyzed 2,973 news sources that had their own Facebook pages, had at least 100 followers on average and had been graded for both quality and partisan bias by the news rating organizations NewsGuard and Media Bias/Fact Check. They divided those pages on a spectrum from far right to far left and, within those categories, separated out pages that have been identified for spreading misinformation. Finally, they downloaded all of the public posts from all 2,973 pages to analyze their follower and engagement data over time…”