Crypto Threads on Reddit Full of “Fake News”: Study

We often use social media channels, particularly Reddit, for interacting with fellow crypto enthusiasts and getting crypto-related news and information. However, a recent study notes that we probably should not trust this channel as much as we do now. The study was presented in the Web Conference held in San Francisco, California and one of the authors, Svitlana Volkova commented on the various trends she had noted in crypto commentary in the course of the study.

The study, conducted only a while before the US Presidential Elections of 2020, focuses on the trends of spreading fake news and wrong information via social media. According to what the researchers found in this study, Reddit is used very commonly for spreading information about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. A lot of discussion forums dedicated to crypto conversations have data about airdrops, new launches, investment decisions and more. Consequently, a lot of rumours spread via these forums and threads.

You May Also Read: Top 10 Cryptocurrencies for 2019

The researchers studied a large number of Reddit threads and subreddits to understand the nature of conversations and information spread around various cryptocurrencies on the platform. It was found that Bitcoin was the most commonly talked about cryptocurrency, while Ethereum and Monero also generated a great deal of interest. It was found that subreddits about Ethereum tended to have the longest lifetimes out of all other cryptocurrencies.

Using the data collected from this study, the researchers are trying to build machine learning-based predictive models to understand the process of decision-making around crypto usage. This will help streamline the study better in the long run.

There is a clear need for improved attention to the authenticity of the information that do the rounds on channels such as Reddit and Telegram and this study really makes us realize that fact. Now, it remains to be seen how the crypto community takes a lesson from this study and works on spreading more accurate data.