A large majority of influencers do not verify the information they relay online, as noted by UNESCO in a report published this Tuesday. The United Nations, which is responsible for combating disinformation, notes that many people express a desire to be trained in this area.
Some of them have tens of millions of followers. Influencers and other social media content creators are now establishing themselves as an essential source of information, particularly for many young people.
UNESCO interviewed several hundred of these creators of information content, in forty-five countries around the world, to arrive at the observation that the information they relay is often not verified. Which is very worrying, as Adeline Hullin, head of UNESCO’s media and information education unit, explains in La Matinale.
“62% of content creators did not check the facts before publishing them. And in 42% of cases, their way of verifying the veracity of information comes down to the number of likes and views. In 37% of cases, they refer to traditional media and in more than 60% of cases, they use their personal experience to verify the facts.
These figures demonstrate a real need for training in this area. What 73% of influencers surveyed say they want. UNESCO has therefore set up a course, free, accessible to all, and in four languages. It is intended, according to Adeline Hullin, to provide them with the basics of information processing in four weeks. It is the very first training in the world designed for and with influencers.
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