This research explores the spread of unreliable information on Facebook during the 2017 French presidential campaign. By analyzing information-sharing behavior on 252 Facebook pages, our study highlights the wide variety of information sources shared by several political communities, notably news published by partisan websites or activist blogs. Our results demonstrate that political parties – particularly, those on the extreme ends of the political spectrum – tend to re-share a large amount of information reflecting the same ideological positions as their own. This trend is amplified by a phenomenon of endo-citation, that is, a “circular circulation” of information between Facebook pages within the same political community. Our results focus on the information practices of the far-right, tracing a clear over-representation of sources that are unreliable or likely to relay disinformation. We argue that this circular transmission of information creates an “unreliable information bubble” that characterizes far-right information-sharing behavior.

中文翻译：

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2017年法国总统大选期间在Facebook上进行信息共享的做法：极端权利内的“不可靠信息泡沫”

这项研究探索了2017年法国总统大选期间Facebook上不可靠信息的传播情况。通过分析252个Facebook页面上的信息共享行为，我们的研究突出了几个政治社区共享的各种信息源，特别是党派网站或激进主义者博客发布的新闻。我们的结果表明，各政党，尤其是那些处于政治最极端的政党，往往会重新分享大量反映其意识形态立场的信息。这种趋势被内部引用现象放大，即同一政治社区内Facebook页面之间的信息“循环流通”。我们的结果侧重于极右翼的信息实践，追踪不可靠或可能传达虚假信息的资源的过度代表。我们认为，这种信息的循环传播会产生一个“不可靠的信息泡沫”，这是极右信息共享行为的特征。