YouGov analysis of honesty and social media.
Social networks started off as garishly-coloured, youth-focused platforms that let you rank your friends, digitally “poke” your romantic interests, and even choose your personal theme tune. Since then, they’ve evolved into one of the default ways that businesses, news outlets, and regular citizens communicate information.
But is this information trustworthy?
New research from YouGov reveals that almost nine in ten Brits uses at least one of the major social media platforms in a 30-day period to keep track of friends, family, celebrities, influencers, and business leaders. It also reveals that not even two-fifths of Brits (38%) can be fully confident that they haven’t seen any misleading content on their favourite networks – and that among some groups, dishonesty has become so commonplace that users don’t even consider it particularly important.
Above all, it highlights the UK’s contradictory relationship with social platforms. If we don’t always trust them, and don’t always think of them as reliable, we can’t seem to stay away.
