Two-thirds of influencers don’t verify their sources, but want to learn how to do so, according to a new survey from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is launching global training to combat disinformation and hate speech.
While digital content creators have become a major source of information for the general public, the UNESCO survey reveals that 62% of them do not conduct rigorous and systematic fact-checking before sharing contents.
However, 73% of them express the wish to be trained to do so, according to UNESCO, which is launching the very first global training on this subject in November, with more than 9,000 registrants from 160 countries.
“Digital content creators have acquired a major place in the information ecosystem, interesting millions of people in cultural, social or political news. But many of them struggle to confront disinformation and hate speech online, and are calling for more training,” explains the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, assuring that as part of its mandate for education for media and information, the UN organization will support them with dedicated global training.
Called “Behind the Screens”, the UNESCO survey analyzes for the first time on a global scale the motivations and practices of digital content creators, as well as the challenges they face. It involved 500 influencers from 45 countries, with the expertise of a specialized research team from Bowling Green State University (United States).
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Besides the fact that fact-checking is not the norm, the survey shows that content creators struggle to determine the best criteria for assessing the credibility of information they find online. 42% of respondents use as their main indicator “the number of likes and shares an article has received” on social media. 21% have no reluctance to share content if it has been communicated to them “by friends they trust”, and 19% say they trust “the reputation” of the author or initial distributor of the content .
While journalists could provide valuable assistance to digital content creators in verifying the reliability of their information, the UNESCO survey finds that links and cooperation between these two communities are still rare. Mainstream news media is only the third most common source (36.9%) for content creators, after their own experience and their own research and interviews.
The survey also reveals that a majority of content creators (59%) are unaware or have only vaguely heard of international standards and regulatory frameworks relating to digital communications. Only a little more than half of respondents (56.4%) are aware of the training programs intended for them. And only 13.9% of those who are aware of these programs have participated in them.
“This lack of awareness can place digital content creators in a situation of legal uncertainty, exposing them to prosecution or even convictions in certain countries. This also prevents them from asserting their rights when they themselves are victims of illegal content online,” warn the authors of the investigation.
They cite, as an example, around a third (32.3%) of digital content creators say they have been the target of hate speech. But, among them, only 20.4% reported it to social media platforms.
While 73% of respondents are in need of training, UNESCO and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (United States) have joined forces to develop a first-ever global course delivered over one month. It aims to empower content creators to combat disinformation and hate speech, and provide them with a solid foundation of knowledge on global legal standards for freedom of expression and information.
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