With the availability of advanced technology at the grip of our hands, we would expect to believe all the information we come across various online platform.
Truth be told, it’s best to take it with a pinch of salt. According to an online poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for Canada’s Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), apparently 90% of Canadians report having succumbed to fake news.
Live Mint reported Facebook as the most commonly cited source for bogus news information at a shocking 77% of its users has experienced being led to fake news on the app. Twitter follows suit with reporting from 62% users. The rest of the share was contributed mainly by YouTube and blogs.
9% of active Facebook users and 10% of Twitter users have respectively closed their account due to this experience. The international public opinion survey was run through with 25,229 internet users on different social media sites across 25 countries.
In terms of the regions responsible for sharing the fake news, it was found that the top three of the list were United States, Russia and China. The result of the survey also revealed the snowballing distrust and discomfort netizens have over their privacy being violated online.
People from the Middle East, especially Egypt were discovered to be the most gullible to fake news while Pakistani users usually taking the benefit of doubt to the authenticity of online news, according to The Jakarta Post.
Respondents were also asked of their opinion on what can be improved to avert the issue. Most of them wanted internet companies and the government of their countries to go hard on tracking down these behind-the-screen activities.
CBC News records a statement from CIGI’s director of global security and politics, Fen Osler Hampson. He says that social media currently has a big taint on its image and the authorities behind it are much aware of it.
