New York, March 3 (TIWN) The reach of the so called "fake news" websites during elections may not be as widespread as commonly feared as researchers have found that visits to untrustworthy websites only account for a small portion of a voter's news diet.

The research, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, showed that untrustworthy websites accounted for only six per cent of all Americans’ news diets on average during the period before and immediately after the U.S. presidential election.  Less than half of all Americans visited an untrustworthy website during the period, said the study.  “These findings show why we need to measure exposure to ‘fake news’ rather than just assuming it is ubiquitous online,” said Brendan Nyhan, Professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, US.  “Online misinformation is a serious problem, but one that we can only address appropriately if we know the magnitude of the problem,” Nyhan said.  To assess the audience for “fake news,” the researchers measured visits to these dubious websites during the period before and immediately after the election using an online survey of 2,525 Americans and web traffic data collected by YouGov Pulse between October 7-November 16, 2016 from respondents’ laptops or desktop computers.