Interesting review of new analysis - though disappointingly it doesn’t really come to much of an explanation.
The most interesting bits are (as always) the data sets…
A 2019 study by researchers at Princeton and New York University showed that Facebook users over the age of 65 were as much as seven times more likely to share fake-news stories and that held true with QAnon.
This is far from a US-only phenomenon. Guardian research in the UK from the end of last year, before Facebook shut down tens of thousands of accounts, revealed a sharp rise in the use of QAnon terms among “an unlikely coalition of spirituality and wellness groups, vigilante ‘paedophile hunter’ networks, pre-existing conspiracy forums, local news pages, pro-Brexit campaigners and the far right”. Meanwhile a survey for Hope Not Hate, which monitors extremism, found that … a quarter (25%) agreed that “ secret satanic cults exist and include influential elites” and a similar proportion (26%) subscribed to the QAnon view that “elites in Hollywood, politics, the media and other powerful positions” were secretly engaged in child trafficking and abuse.
Far be it from me to note the link here between people ‘over the age of 65’, ‘pro-Brexit campaigners and the far right’, and conspiracy-gullibility.
Is the real explanation simply demography?.. or senility?