No interrogation of why it spread was investigated. It immediately made me wonder, maybe people just thought "false" information was a whole lot funnier, and hence sharable.
The problem with misinformation is it vaguely doesn't exist. There's parody, non-orthodoxy, true things people disagree with for political reason, unproven things, urban myths, rumors, etc etc. These are all classes of information people blame all the ills of society on.
The transmission cascades and cascade sizes for false info are studied. Misinformation for example is repeated, like a nuclear feedback loop, or more like gossip being repeated between people till it becomes a “fact”.
Science related info propagates through the network only a few times, as if people who read it understand it and move on.
You don't think that people lie on the internet?