Major social media and technology companies continue to make algorithmic, user interface, and policy changes to their products to address information integrity challenges on their platforms.
Despite growing evidence that exposure to and engagement with disinformation narrowly defined on the basis of identified problematic domains is a very small part of most people’s media use, concentrated among partisans actively seeking it out, and often primarily consumed by people who consume far more news from established outlets, survey research suggests very widespread concern over disinformation, especially online.
One survey conducted in 2020 asked respondents across 40 media markets whether, thinking about online news, they were concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet. 56% of respondents across these markets were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about this, ranging from a low 32% in the Netherlands to a high 84% in Brazil.