Disinformation and Framing Battles in French Immigration Debates on X

Disinformation and “fake news” around immigration have long been contentious in France. While misleading stories have circulated in the press for decades (Tucher 2022), the concern that social media magnifies their impact has pushed the topic to the forefront of public debate.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of (dis)information and framing contests in the immigration debate on X, a key battleground in the technomediatic public sphere due to its popularity among media and political elites. Focusing on France, we analyze 1.1 million posts (2020-2021) employing ideological embedding techniques to estimate users’ ideological leanings, exploring how established news sources and alternative online ones circulate. Drawing on 42 interviews with users, we examine the motivations and strategies behind the production and sharing of immigration-related (dis)information.

We identify a significant disparity in the reach of far-right media compared to mainstream sources, where a small yet hyperactive far-right faction disproportionately amplifies hyperpartisan content. These actors initiate targeted campaigns by highlighting isolated incidents and leveraging alternative media, often positioning themselves as defenders of truth against perceived media bias. Instead of relying solely on factually false information, they selectively use statistics or incidents, obscuring essential context to frame narratives that serve their agenda. When these narratives gain traction on social media, traditional outlets often pick them up, typically presenting alternative framings.

Our analysis moves beyond content to examine the social and technological dynamics shaping the spread of (dis)information. We show that far-right actors strategically use digital platforms to reframe immigration narratives countering what they describe as biased mainstream coverage, while left-leaning users tend to disengage, contributing to asymmetries in online participation. This selective amplification allows fringe sources to gain disproportionate visibility, especially through retweets. This underscores the need to address the socio-technical infrastructures facilitating content amplification, and investigating message diffusion and motivations beyond false/true binaries.