Online influencers need ‘urgent’ fact-checking training, warns Unesco | Social media

Social media influencers need “urgent” help to check their facts before they broadcast to their followers, in order to reduce the spread of misinformation online, Unesco has warned.

According to a report by the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural organisation, two-thirds of content creators fail to check the accuracy of their material, making them and their followers vulnerable to misinformation.

Unesco said its findings, which come from a survey of influencers, underlined the need for media and literacy teaching to help shape their work.

“The low prevalence of factchecking highlights their vulnerability to misinformation, which can have far-reaching consequences for public discourse and trust in media,” the report said.

Six out of 10 creators said they had not verified the accuracy of their information before sharing it with the audience, while the research found that creators generally didn’t use official sources such as government documents and websites.

The most common source was “personal experience/encounter” followed by creators’ own research or talking to people knowledgable about the subject, with mainstream and non-mainstream news sources joint third.

Unesco’s research found that four out of 10 creators cited the “popularity” of an online source – measured by the number of likes and views – as a key indicator of whether it was credible or not.

“The prevalent lack of rigorous critical evaluation of information highlights an urgent need to enhance creators’ media information literacy skills,” the report said.

Unesco has teamed up with the US-based Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas – part of the University of Texas – to offer an online course in “how to be a trusted voice online”, which includes modules on factchecking and creating content about elections or crises. Unesco said 9,000 influencers had already registered for the free, month-long course.

Adeline Hulin, a specialist in media literacy at Unesco, said some influencers were surprised that their work could be viewed as news journalism. “They don’t really put themselves in that category,” she said.

Salomé Saqué, a French journalist and popular “news influencer”, said many creators were not familiar with journalistic practice and needed to have a better understanding of the impact that their work could have. More professional journalists should use social media to disseminate their work, she added.

Nearly half the creators contacted by Unesco said they had a “partial” knowledge of the laws related to freedom of expression, defamation and copyright in their country, but would not consider themselves as knowledgable.

More than a quarter of the creators were not aware of regulations covering their work in the country where they operated. Only half of the creators surveyed clearly disclosed sponsors, donors or funding sources to their audiences. In the US and UK, influencers are required to tell users if their post is sponsored.

Unesco based its findings on a survey of 500 content creators from 45 countries and territories, with the majority from Europe and Asia. It said most of the respondents were under 35 years old and “nano-influencers”, with up to 10,000 followers whose main platforms of choice are Instagram and Facebook. About a quarter had up to 100,000 followers.