A new study suggests that online misinformation is not limited to fabricated stories from unreliable websites but also includes factual reports from mainstream media that are repurposed to support false claims. Researchers found that social media users who frequently share fake news also share specific articles from reputable news outlets that contain narratives common in misinformation. The findings indicate that bad actors may strategically select true information to lend credibility to misleading arguments. The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Social scientists and media researchers have traditionally struggled to quantify the spread of falsehoods online. The standard approach involves identifying specific websites or domains known for publishing fabricated content and tracking how often links to those sites appear on social networks. This method assumes a clear division where “fake” news comes from bad sources and “real” news comes from good sources. However, this source-based binary fails to capture the nuance of how information actually circulates. A factual story from a reliable outlet can be taken out of context to imply something untrue. …