Elderly, Conservatives Shared More Facebook Fake News in 2016

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new study finds that people over 65 and ultra conservatives shared about seven times more fake information on Facebook than younger adults, moderates and super liberals during the 2016 election season.

The first major study to look at who shared links from debunked sites found that not many people are doing it. On average only about 1 out of every 12 people shared false information during the 2016 campaign.

But those doing it tend to be older and more conservative.

Researchers at Princeton University and New York University looked at the Facebook sites of more than 1,300 people who answered detailed surveys and compared them to three lists of fake sites.

The study is in Wednesday's journal Science Advances.