Two out of three Italians believe they can run into false news or misinformation. It is the most important figure that emerges from the survey conducted by the Demopolis Institute on a sample of over 4,000 respondents, representative of the Italian population. The research reveals a crisis of public confidence, which mainly affects the net and social networks, with different intensities and motivations, but also traditional media. Citizens do not feel completely confident about what they read or see. 65% of respondents often doubt the news on social networks, and the harder months of COVID-19 pandemic have increased distrust. Despite the doubts, however, in practice Italians give in to the taste of sharing: more than 4 Italians out of 10 regularly forward to friends or acquaintances news (images or videos) that they consider interesting or surprising, without first verifying their reliability. Yet, 7 out of 10 Italians declare themselves to be very or quite concerned about the growing spread of hate speech and attitudes on social networks in recent years.
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