Mutual Hyperlinking Among Misinformation Peddlers

Abstract

The internet promised to democratize access to knowledge and make the world more open and understanding. The reality of today's internet, however, is far from this ideal. Misinformation, lies, and conspiracies dominate many social media platforms. This toxic online world has had real-world implications ranging from genocide to, election interference, and threats to global public health. A frustrated public and impatient government regulators are calling for a more vigorous response to mis- and disinformation campaigns designed to sow civil unrest and inspire violence against individuals, societies, and democracies. We describe a large-scale, domain-level analysis that reveals seemingly coordinated efforts between multiple domains to spread and amplify misinformation. We also describe how the hyperlinks shared by certain Twitter users can be used to surface problematic domains. These analyses can be used by search engines and social media recommendation algorithms to systematically discover and demote misinformation peddlers.