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		</div><p>So-called fake news played only a small role in propelling US President Donald Trump to the White House, research suggests.</p>
<p>A study found that fewer than 9% of Americans shared links to fake news sites on Facebook during the 2016 presidential election campaign.</p>
<p>However, a disproportionately high number of people over the age of 65 were involved in spreading fake news.</p>
<p>Joshua Tucker, professor of politics at New York University, said: <em>“Despite widespread interest in the fake news phenomenon, we know very little about who actually shares fake news.</em></p>
<p><em>“This study takes a first step towards answering this question.</em></p>
<p><em>“Perhaps most significantly, we find that sharing this type of content on Facebook was a relatively rare activity during the 2016 presidential campaign.”</em></p>
<p>The findings, reported in the journal Science Advances, are based on a survey of around 1,300 people conducted by the polling firm YouGov.</p>
<p>Overall, just 8.5% of the group was found to have shared links from fake news sites via Facebook.</p>
<p>There was a big age difference in terms of who did and did not fall for fake news propaganda.</p>
<p>Just 3% of young people aged 18 to 29 shared links from fake news sites, compared with 11% of over-65s.</p>
<p>The association with age was independent of respondents’ ideological or political affiliations.</p>
<p>Dr Andrew Guess, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University in the US, said: <em>“If seniors are more likely to share fake news than younger people, then there are important implications for how we might design interventions to reduce the spread of fake news.”</em></p>
<p>The study also found that far more Republicans (18%) shared links to fake news sites than Democrats (4%).</p>
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<div>But the researchers cautioned that this may simply be the result of most fake news produced during the campaign being pro-Trump or seeking to discredit his opponent Hillary Clinton.</div>
</div>
<p>Fake news sources were chiefly gathered from sites assembled by journalist Craig Silverman, of Buzzfeed News, who investigated the phenomenon in 2016.</p>
<p>The list was supplemented by other news stories debunked by fact-checking organizations.</p>
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