Fake news sites have struggled to take hold in the UK political sphere, seemingly because traditional British news outlets are already incredibly adept at filling the market with highly partisan news stories that stretch the truth to its limits.



BuzzFeed News analysed the hundred most shared news stories on social media for a variety of topics relating to British politics over the last 12 months, taking in major events such as the EU referendum, the appointment of Theresa May as prime minister, and Jeremy Corbyn's re-election as Labour leader.

In countries such as the US and Italy, completely fake stories with no basis in fact have come to dominate political debate on social networks such as Facebook. Such material – with headlines such as the infamous "Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President" – is usually produced for political or financial purposes by websites that have little pre-existing online footprint.

BuzzFeed News has revealed how Macedonian teenagers could make tens of thousands of dollars fabricating stories about Donald Trump, how fake news is spreading to Germany and Italy, and how fake news stories outperformed real news outlets during the US election.

But equivalent analysis of UK social media habits reveals the most popular dubious stories on British politics were almost always the work of long-established news outlets and relied at most on exaggeration rather than fakery. The evidence suggests that rather than reading complete lies, British audiences appear to prefer stories that contain at least a kernel of truth, even if the facts are polluted or distorted.

"We have always had a partisan press that people enjoy and have become acclimatised to," said Charlie Beckett, professor of journalism at the London School of Economics. "Hyperpartisan news has always been part of our audience's culture – and we do it better in some ways than fake news."



This has left a limited gap for fake news providers. Instead, traditional publishers have grown more reliant on Facebook shares for internet traffic and advertising income, ratcheting up the shock value of headlines to meet demand.

This also suggests that any regulatory attempt to crack down on "fake news" – currently under discussion by the UK government and the subject of discussion by media pundits – would in reality require making editorial judgments against substantial British media outlets rather than simply shutting down opportunistic fly-by-night fake news sites.



Analysis of the hundred most popular pieces of Brexit content using the social-media monitoring tool BuzzSumo found the single most shared referendum-related news story – as opposed to comment piece or clearly labelled satire – was a brief 377-word article published by the Daily Express on 3 May.

Headlined "Major leak from Brussels reveals NHS will be ‘KILLED OFF’ if Britain remains in the EU" and based on leaked documents provided by Greenpeace, the piece asserted that ongoing EU–US trade deal talks would result in "the health service being privatised or dismantled" if Britain remained in the European Union.

Despite going largely unnoticed in the rest of the media it is likely to have been one of the most-read pieces of journalism written during the entire EU referendum campaign.