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Is Fake News a Problem: Statistics Show the Truth. JournoLink takes a deep dive into the latest fake news statistics and trends.
A recent survey found that 45% of adults in the UK believe that they come across fake news every single day….
This seems like a lot, but is it accurate, and what does it mean?
Fake news has been reported in the mainstream media a lot right now, and really took off the 2016 US elections, but what does it even mean and how big a deal is it? Journolink is going to examine fake news statistics; its impact on real news and what measures we can take to ensure the news we read is accurate.
Click here to see the infographic.
Fake news is misleading information deliberately spread as “news” typically online. There’s an important difference between fake news and simply inaccurate reporting. Fake news implies that the misinformation is absolutely deliberate, whereas small reporting mistakes in the media are generally mistakes that are subsequently corrected by journalists or the media outlet later.
So just how big a deal is it? Let’s take a look at some fake news statistics.
We ran a survey of 1,000 people in the UK to find out how often they felt that they came across fake news online.
In addition, we researched Google Trends and search data to find out how popular a topic is across the globe and analysed other data sources too.
Our key findings in summary:
Click here to see the infographic.
When we sent out our Google Surveys, we only the following question.
“How often do you believe you encounter “fake news” online?”
Here’s how they responded.
Key findings from latest published data by the IPSO:
IPSO publishes complaints made to it about newspapers and magazines it regulates. While inaccurate news isn’t always the same as fake news and isn’t generally deliberate, we assessed whether IPSO is identifying more breaches.
Here’s what we found:
Period |
Total Complaints Where “Accuracy” was a Part of the Complaint |
Total Number of Complaints Concerning Accuracy Resulting in IPSO Declaring a Breach |
Number of Complaints Concerning Accuracy Resulting in IPSO No Breach |
Jan to Dec 2015 |
3,915 |
50 |
161 |
Jan to Dec 2016 |
5,836 |
44 |
119 |
Jan to Dec 2017 |
10,405* |
49 |
142 |
Jan to Dec 2018 |
2,150 |
61 |
92 |
*Spike in complaints but over 6,000 of these complaints were rejected.
Other outcomes are possible (hence breach, no breach and breach do not add up to the total complaints. Other outcomes include the complaint being found to be outside of the remit of IPSO, not being pursued or being resolved through mediation.
Based on Google Trends data, which looks at the popularity of search terms, we can see the following “fake news” as a search query globally:
If we look at the UK specifically, a similar pattern applies.
Within the UK, the query is particularly popular in:
We used kwfinder.com to pull data about the number of searches for “fake news” by city in the UK taking an average of the past 3 years to give a monthly search figure.
We then:
Our findings:
City/Town |
"Fake news" Searches/Month |
"Fake News" Searches Per Year |
Population |
% of People Making a Search (Assuming Searches Equally Divided) Each Year |
Oxford |
110 |
1320 |
159994 |
0.83% |
Cambridge |
70 |
840 |
145818 |
0.58% |
Bath |
40 |
480 |
94782 |
0.51% |
Manchester |
210 |
2520 |
510746 |
0.49% |
Belfast |
110 |
1320 |
280211 |
0.47% |
Exeter |
40 |
480 |
113507 |
0.42% |
Dundee |
50 |
600 |
147285 |
0.41% |
Newcastle upon Tyne |
90 |
1080 |
268064 |
0.40% |
Colchester |
40 |
480 |
119441 |
0.40% |
Slough |
50 |
600 |
155298 |
0.39% |
Edinburgh |
140 |
1680 |
459366 |
0.37% |
Brighton |
70 |
840 |
229700 |
0.37% |
Worcester |
30 |
360 |
100153 |
0.36% |
Lincoln |
30 |
360 |
100160 |
0.36% |
Leeds |
140 |
1680 |
474632 |
0.35% |
London |
2400 |
28800 |
8173941 |
0.35% |
Salford |
30 |
360 |
103886 |
0.35% |
Glasgow |
170 |
2040 |
590507 |
0.35% |
Rochdale |
30 |
360 |
107926 |
0.33% |
Cardiff |
90 |
1080 |
335145 |
0.32% |
Norwich |
50 |
600 |
186682 |
0.32% |
Bristol |
140 |
1680 |
535907 |
0.31% |
Bolton |
50 |
600 |
194189 |
0.31% |
Aberdeen |
50 |
600 |
195021 |
0.31% |
Leicester |
110 |
1320 |
443760 |
0.30% |
Peterborough |
40 |
480 |
161707 |
0.30% |
Huddersfield |
40 |
480 |
162949 |
0.29% |
Nottingham |
70 |
840 |
289301 |
0.29% |
Northampton |
50 |
600 |
215773 |
0.28% |
Coventry |
70 |
840 |
325949 |
0.26% |
Bournemouth |
40 |
480 |
187503 |
0.26% |
Plymouth |
50 |
600 |
234982 |
0.26% |
Sheffield |
110 |
1320 |
518090 |
0.25% |
Oldham |
20 |
240 |
96555 |
0.25% |
Liverpool |
110 |
1320 |
552267 |
0.24% |
Birmingham |
210 |
2520 |
1085810 |
0.23% |
Wigan |
20 |
240 |
103608 |
0.23% |
Crawley |
20 |
240 |
106943 |
0.22% |
Maidstone |
20 |
240 |
107627 |
0.22% |
Sutton Coldfield |
20 |
240 |
109015 |
0.22% |
Eastbourne |
20 |
240 |
109185 |
0.22% |
Reading |
40 |
480 |
218705 |
0.22% |
Warrington |
30 |
360 |
165456 |
0.22% |
Sunderland |
30 |
360 |
174286 |
0.21% |
Cheltenham |
20 |
240 |
116447 |
0.21% |
Portsmouth |
40 |
480 |
238137 |
0.20% |
Gateshead |
20 |
240 |
120046 |
0.20% |
Swindon |
30 |
360 |
182441 |
0.20% |
Solihull |
20 |
240 |
123187 |
0.19% |
Southampton |
40 |
480 |
253651 |
0.19% |
Derby |
40 |
480 |
255394 |
0.19% |
Wolverhampton |
40 |
480 |
265178 |
0.18% |
Sale |
20 |
240 |
134022 |
0.18% |
Telford |
20 |
240 |
142723 |
0.17% |
Birkenhead |
20 |
240 |
142968 |
0.17% |
Ipswich |
20 |
240 |
144957 |
0.17% |
Poole |
20 |
240 |
154718 |
0.16% |
Bradford |
40 |
480 |
349561 |
0.14% |
Southend-on-Sea |
20 |
240 |
175547 |
0.14% |
Stoke-on-Trent |
30 |
360 |
270726 |
0.13% |
Kingston upon Hull |
30 |
360 |
284321 |
0.13% |
St. Helens |
10 |
120 |
102885 |
0.12% |
Woking |
10 |
120 |
105367 |
0.11% |
Luton |
20 |
240 |
211228 |
0.11% |
Stockport |
10 |
120 |
105878 |
0.11% |
Basildon |
10 |
120 |
107123 |
0.11% |
Basingstoke |
10 |
120 |
107355 |
0.11% |
Worthing |
10 |
120 |
109120 |
0.11% |
Rotherham |
10 |
120 |
109691 |
0.11% |
Doncaster |
10 |
120 |
109805 |
0.11% |
Chelmsford |
10 |
120 |
110507 |
0.11% |
Blackburn |
10 |
120 |
117963 |
0.10% |
High Wycombe |
10 |
120 |
120256 |
0.10% |
Newport (Wales) |
10 |
120 |
128060 |
0.09% |
Watford |
10 |
120 |
131982 |
0.09% |
Gloucester |
10 |
120 |
136362 |
0.09% |
Blackpool |
10 |
120 |
147,663 |
0.08% |
Milton Keynes |
10 |
120 |
171750 |
0.07% |
Middlesbrough |
10 |
120 |
174700 |
0.07% |
Swansea |
10 |
120 |
179485 |
0.07% |
In conclusion, our findings imply that the cities where people are most likely to be making this search are (in order):
Facebook has repeatedly found itself under pressure to do more to eradicate fake news peddling on its platform. And indeed, Facebook is where millions of interactions on fake news stories take place every day.
It was found that in the final 3 months of the 2016 US Presidential Campaign, (August 2016 up to election day), fake news stories got more interaction on Facebook than mainstream media stories did. The same was found to happen with the Brexit campaign.
There have also been a lot of negative stories about Ukraine shared by Russian media and bots.
The research from Buzzfeed suggests the following:
Engagement with fake news is falling on Facebook and fake accounts are being tackled, albeit slowly.
Statistics do suggest a surge in interest in fake news from 2016, with a continued interest in the topic and still plenty of engagement on social platforms with known fake news content.
But with more awareness in society of the negative effects of fake news, this has led directly to social media channels taking direct action to limit the amount of fake news, on channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This means we are starting to see engagement with fake news fall globally.
So, even though the majority of people in the UK still believe that they encounter fake news daily or weekly, the percentage of fake news is falling.
We still have a way to go before it is eradicated, so we recommend always checking multiple sources before sharing a story on your blog, newsletter or website. You can also use a fact-checking resource such as Snopes, to ensure that you only publish information that is genuine.
If you have any questions about this, or about sharing your own news, please contact JournoLink.
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