It looks like Facebook’s actions to stop the spread of fake news might actually be working.

A new study titled “Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media” from researchers at Stanford University and New York University have discovered that Facebook engagement — shares, likes, and comments from users interacting with articles on the platform — dramatically dropped 50 percent between the 2016 election and July 2018.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg on election interference: ‘This has been an intense year’

Researchers Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, and Chuan Yu used data from over 570 sites classified as fake news from sources such as Poltifact, FactCheck, and Buzzfeed. Using data compiled by BuzzSumo, a marketing analytics firm that tracks “user interactions with internet content on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms,” the researchers discovered that the Facebook engagement of all the sites combined sat at 70 million as of this July. That’s a huge drop from its height in 2016 when the sites had totaled 200 million monthly engagements. 

The study also took into account that this might not just be relative to fake news content. Facebook is always making adjustments to it’s algorithm with effects that echo through the entire site. To make sure the falling Facebook engagement trend is unique to outlets peddling misinformation and not just a result of a platform-wide algorithm change, the study also looked at legitimate news, business, and culture websites. The results were encouraging. “We see no similar pattern for other news, business, or culture sites, where interactions have been relatively stable over time and have followed similar trends […] before and after the election.”

While Facebook is headed in the direction when it comes to combating misinformation, unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Twitter. The same study discovered that engagement on Twitter, such as retweets, has actually gone up when it comes to fake news — from 4 million engagements in 2016 to 6 million in 2018.

Mark Zuckerberg and company may be on the right track when it comes to fighting fake news, but as you can see from those engagement numbers, it’s not a success story quite yet. Even with the downward trend over the past 2 years, Facebook is still responsible for much more of the spread of fake news than a social platform like Twitter. The company may have a much larger user base than the little blue bird, which certainly accounts for the higher engagement numbers, but it also has many more resources. Along with technology to fight fake news, Facebook has been able to recruit human beings to moderate and monitor the site for misinformation whereas Twitter has made it clear via it’s CEO Jack Dorsey that they don’t want to partake in being “arbiters of truth.” Twitter also likely can’t afford to either.

There isn’t yet cause for celebration, as there’s still much more work to be done in the battle against fake news. The researchers of this study are also open with the fact that additional research is needed even on its findings. However, the study does enforce that these first steps taken by Facebook to curb fake news are indeed having some affect.

Half a century ago, back in 1964, a film came out that would shape the childhoods of not just one generation, but pretty much every generation that came thereafter. 

Mary Poppins, since first it graced cinema screens, became a firm fixture on family television sets. I recall my grandmother posting me a card with a pound coin taped to it with the strict instruction to rent Mary Poppins from the video shop. For my father, the film marks his very first trip to the cinema, age six. 

But mine was not the only home filled with the sounds of “chim chimney chim chimney” being played on a loop. Lin-Manuel Miranda, star of Mary Poppins Returns — the upcoming sequel to the beloved original film — says the movie was “on regular rotation” in his childhood home. 

“I wore out ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and I wore out ‘Jolly Holiday,’ Miranda tells Mashable during a set visit at Shepperton Studios, where filming took place. “I didn’t see the end for many years because I would burst into tears at ‘The Birds,’ and I was like, ‘Turn it off! Turn it off!’”

SEE ALSO: Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals his favourite things about the UK, and they’re amazing

To be starring in the sequel is, understandably, something of a dream for Miranda, given his childhood obsession with the original. Miranda plays Jack, a lamplighter who “apprenticed under Bert [Dick Van Dyke] from the original films.”

“I started writing musicals because I didn’t see a path for myself in musical theatre.”

“There are dreams that are too audacious to dream,” says Miranda. “Like, you could dream of maybe being on Broadway someday, you could dream of writing a show.

“Then there are dreams that you didn’t even have the audacity to have, like that there would be a sequel to Mary Poppins and you could be dancing with Mary Poppins someday. Who would have the audacity to have that dream?” 

But, this audacious dream is now a reality for Miranda, who forged his own route to musical theatre by creating In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical. 

“I started writing musicals because I didn’t see a path for myself in musical theatre,” he says. “I was like, I don’t dance well enough to play Bernardo [from West Side Story], and if you’re a Puerto Rican dude that’s what you get.”

The movie features songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and an original score by Shaiman, who’s best known for writing the Broadway musical version of Hairspray. Working alongside Shaiman and Wittman is particularly poignant as he’s been a fan of them both “forever”. 

“You finish the musical number and they applaud a year-and-a-half later.”

“I remember getting rush tickets to previews of Hairspray and actually standing next to Marc Shaiman while he was taking notes and I was just a kid out of college,” says Miranda. He says the opportunity to sing Marc and Scott’s music is “a real joy.” He describes the score to the sequel as a “love letter” to the Sherman Brothers, who wrote the score for the 1964 movie.

So, how does Miranda’s experience of performing on a film set differ to singing on stage in front of a live audience?

“Well, the only really key difference is that you finish the musical number and they applaud a year-and-a-half later, which is jarring,” he says. “I miss the buzz of applause a little bit.”

Miranda was still performing in Hamilton when he was approached by director Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca with the role. In between shows, Miranda met with Marshall and DeLuca in the Paramount Hotel, just across the road from the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where Hamilton was playing. 

“They said, ‘we want you to play a lamplighter,’” Miranda recalls. When Miranda asked what a lamplighter was, he realised he’d already played a similar role in his first show, In the Heights. “I play a guy named Usnavi and the central metaphor from that was he’s the street lighter in the neighbourhood,” says Miranda. He says this character struggles with the notion that he’s “stuck here” but then realises it’s his job “to tell these stories, to shine a light on these stories on this corner.” 

For this reason, the role of Jack “felt very close to home” when it was pitched to him. 

Mary Poppins Returns will hit cinemas in the UK on December 21, 2018, and in the U.S. on December 19, 2018.

Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) is under attack. The notorious hacker and guerrilla revenge artist against misogyny returns in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, directed by Fede Alvarez, and the full trailer for it is non-stop action.

In Spider’s Web, Lisbeth finds herself set up as a target and ends up investigating the Spider Society – and her own past.

SEE ALSO: ‘The Crown’ has reportedly found its new Prince Philip

Lisbeth is recruited by a new client (Stephen Merchant) when an attack on her home pushes her into that literal and figurative spider’s web. At the center is none other than her own sister (Sylvia Hoeks) with sinister intentions.

The film also stars Sverrir Gudnason, Lakeith Stanfield, Claes Bang, Christopher Convery, Synnøve Macody Lund, and Vicky Krieps.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web crawls into theaters Nov. 9.

After a long wait, the official first trailer for Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns is finally here. 

The trailer outlines the oddball nanny’s much needed visit to the grown up Banks children, who now have children of their own. In homage to the first movie, the trailer gives the world its first look at a half-animated, half live-action sequence featuring dancing penguins, underwater adventures, and a tap dance number performed by original cast member Dick Van Dyke. It’s a jolly holiday indeed.

Mary Poppins Returns hits theaters Dec. 19.