I SEE A LOT OF THIS SHARED BY MY LEFTY FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK: BBC Trending: The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news.

One example of an incorrect story is the unflattering, digitally-manipulated image, which suggested that US President Donald Trump had diarrhoea during a recent golf outing. Another falsely suggested that President Trump profited from the US missile strikes in Syria

It’s hard to gather definitive data on the political bias in fake news stories, so the evidence for a rise in ‘liberal fake news’ is essentially anecdotal. But a recent study did effectively debunk the stereotype that fake news tends to be shared more by uneducated people or those with right-leaning politics, as compared to other groups. . . .

As for where the market for liberal fake news comes from, according to Claire Wardle, who is a research director at First Draft – a non-profit organisation which is looking for solutions around trust and truth in the digital age – the appetite stems from so-called confirmation bias.

“People like to share information that makes them feel good, ” she says.

“Many people on the left right now are feeling overwhelmed and fearful and unsure of what’s going to happen next. While they’re scrolling through their information feeds at speed on small mobile phones their critical functions are not kicking in, and they’re seeing information that makes them feel immediately connected with other people who think similarly to them. And without doing the usual checks that they would do, they’re sharing and very quickly passing on similarly false and problematic content that we were seeing before the election.”

Lots of lefty academics sharing stuff from OccupyDemocrats that has no basis in fact, or even plausibility.

Related: Facebook’s Fake News Is Looking More Liberal Every Day.