Majority of social media influencers don't verify information before sharing it, study finds

According to a study the majority of social media influencers don’t verify information before sharing it with their audiences. (Pekic / E+ / Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

New York — A majority of social media influencers don’t verify information before sharing it with their audiences, a study published Tuesday by the UN’s scientific and cultural arm found, underscoring concerns that some of the biggest online figures can uncritically spread misleading claims.

According to the UNESCO study, 62 per cent of surveyed creators said they don’t vet the accuracy of content before sharing it with their followers. Roughly one-third of influencers said they shared information without checking its validity if it originated from a source that they trusted, while 37 per cent said they verified information with a fact-checking site before circulation.

The study, which surveyed 500 digital content creators across 45 countries and territories in August and September 2024, included creators with more than 1,000 followers. While only 12 per cent of the surveyed influencers said they produced content about “current affairs/politics and the economy,” UNESCO warned that “the low prevalence of fact-checking highlights their vulnerability to misinformation, which can have far-reaching consequences for public discourse and trust in media.”

Rather than verifying information, more than four in 10 influencers said they evaluated a source’s credibility by “popularity” — the number of likes and views it had received — while one in five said trusted friends and experts were the most common factor in determining an online source’s credibility. Only 17 per cent said documentation and evidence was their top factor in gauging credibility.

“The prevalent lack of rigorous critical evaluation of information highlights an urgent need to enhance creators’ media and information literacy skills, including identifying and using reliable fact-checking resources,” UNESCO said.

The study comes in the wake of the 2024 US presidential election, in which social media influencers played a key role as an information source for voters. During the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris harnessed social media influencers and podcasters with millions of followers, including Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper, to appeal directly to voters.

A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that almost 40 per cent of young Americans aged 18 to 29 “regularly” get their news from influencers, most of whom have never been employed by a news organization. And a separate survey from Pew found that more than half of American adults “at least sometimes” get their news from social media.

“But unlike journalists who are often equipped with skills and tools to assess sources’ credibility and verify facts, digital content creators often lack formal training in these areas, which can lead to challenges in ensuring the accuracy of their content,” UNESCO said.

Online influencers generally do not rely on official sources of information, such as government-issued reports and documents, the UNESCO study found. Roughly six in 10 influencers deferred to their own personal experiences as a source of information, while nearly 40 per cent used their own research and interviews with knowledgeable sources. Mainstream news and online sources tied for third, accounting for 37 per cent each.

To this point, 69 per cent of the surveyed influencers believed they were promoting “critical thinking and digital literacy” despite not engaging in thorough fact-checking or source evaluation.

“Everything I post is based entirely on material drawn from my own life experiences,” Zhang Zhaoyuan, a China-based influencer, told UNESCO in an interview.

Still, others were more scrupulous in their presentation of information. Kassy Cho, a UK journalist with more than 30,000 followers on Instagram, told UNESCO she often looks to mainstream media “just to understand like what is going on around the world” as a jumping-off point.

Influencer promoted mis- and disinformation has posed a thorny challenge for governments. Earlier this year, false claims that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing their neighbors’ pets and eating them exploded on social media, amplified by right-wing influencers and the Trump campaign. While city officials attempted to fact-check the baseless claims, they were outmatched by viral claims that led to bomb threats, school closures, and a community largely under siege.

In September, a Justice Department indictment alleged that a suite of major conservative influencers — including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin — assembled by Tenet Media unwittingly took in millions of dollars from Russia to promote divisive narratives that achieved the Kremlin’s goals. While the influencers were not accused of wrongdoing by the Justice Department, the indictment highlighted how opaque the sector is.

Social media platforms have also largely removed guardrails preventing the spread of misinformation. Elon Musk’s X, for instance, relies on “Community Notes” to address misleading or altogether false information, and seldom removes content. The platform’s efforts are often undermined by Musk himself, who has gutted the platform’s moderation team since acquiring the company in 2022 and often uses his personal account to promote misinformation.

Similarly, while YouTube prohibits the monetization of videos that include demonstrably false claims that risk undermining trust in electoral and democratic processes, the Google-owned company has still profited from content that champions election misinformation. And while Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, imposes penalties on users who share fact-checked content, the platform does not remove the posts.

Unlike their counterparts in the mainstream media, online influencers are not obligated to divulge the source of their funding or whether their content was sponsored. The UNESCO study confirmed that influencers are not always upfront about funding.

While 53 per cent of respondents said they had created sponsored content or endorsed brands and products, 7 per cent said they didn’t disclose their sponsorships, instead presenting content “as if it were unsponsored.”