New Poll Finds Americans Consider Misinformation a Greater Threat Than Terrorism or Disease
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A new poll found that more Americans view the spread of false information online as a “major threat” than those fearing terrorism, the health of the global economy, and even infectious diseases.
Pew Research Center released a survey on Wednesday focused on Americans’ evolving views of the media in today’s digital age. The poll was conducted earlier this year among more than 9,000 people, and it carries a 1.3% margin of error.
According to the survey , 7 in 10 Americans view the “spread of false information” online as a “major threat.” Another 24% view it as a minor threat, while 5% said they don’t see it as a threat. The number of concerned respondents was higher than for terrorism, the state of the global economy, and more.
The poll found approximately 60% of Americans view terrorism and “the condition of the global economy” as major threats, while about 50% viewed “global climate change” and the “spread of infectious diseases” as major threats. Expanding on those results, 35% called terrorism and the global economy minor threats, while 29% and 44% viewed climate change and infectious diseases as minor threats.
The results of course change when politics and age get factored in, but a majority of Republicans and Democrats still view false information spreading online as a major threat. More than 60% of Republicans and people who lean Republican called it a major threat, and 80% of Democrats and those who lean left agreed.
More Republicans viewed terrorism as a major threat, but the other categories ranked lower among Republicans than false information — the spread of misinformation remained the biggest concern for Democrats.
When age was accounted for, it became clear that younger Americans are less concerned than older Americans, but a majority in all age groups still named false information as a big threat. According to the results, 81% of people 65 years and older are concerned, and 71% aged 50-64 agree. Those numbers drop to 68% and 62% for the 30-49 age and 18-29 age groups, respectively.
Tags
Who is online
90 visitors
Who can blame them after the blizzard of lies we've been subjected to. "Hands up don't shoot" and a million others from people like Schiff.
If people really viewed misinformation as a threat, they would investigate the things they are told instead of accepting them without question.
Every one of these lies has been told by Trump, and only within the last year. And this is just a fraction of the lies I could have listed. And he is President of the United States. If you are genuinely concerned about misinformation, start with him.
Progressive partisans are always obsessed with the mote in other's eye instead of the beam in their own. It makes them feel better about their own promotion of disinformation.
A reminder of what believing utter crap leads to:
Can we just take a second to reflect that a man entered the Olympics. Beat the living fuck out of women. And the entire liberal world cheered him on while he was beating the fuck out of them. Like… that actually happened.
So you are arguing that Trump has a "mote" in his eye, but progressives have beams ?
Progressives pushed so many batshit crazy lies the last decade plus its impossible to even know where to start. Nominating Biden, a guy who was only famous for being a liar, after spending four years claiming Trump's lies were destroying democracy shows Democrats don't care one iota about misinformation.
Tacos posted 15 lies by Trump, all of them pretty important in one way or another. There are hundreds more. Trump cant go a single day without egregiously lying. Give us a break.
Did it happen? To whom are you referring? Or rather, to whom does that X post refer? Do you know? Because there’s no name there. I’ll help you out, because I do what most people don’t. I investigate the outrageous sounding stories.
If you think it is Algerian boxer Imane Khelif , she is not trans, though she was accused of that. She is a cisgender woman. That is, she was born female. She has not been through any kind of transition. She is a woman. Always has been.
The same is true of Taiwanese boxer, Lin Yu-Ting, who has also been the subject of rumors about her sex.
Both boxers were the subject of Russian disinformation campaigns. Imagine that. Russia spreading lies about people. Russia, which is currently banned from the Olympics for doping.
How Russian disinformation campaigns have sought to undermine the Paris Olympics