Nearly half of Canadians find it hard to tell what’s true online: StatCan

The survey found 59 per cent of Canadians say they are very or extremely concerned about any type of misinformation that is found online.

Nearly half of Canadians, about 43 per cent, say they are finding it harder than even three years ago to tell the difference between what is true and false online, a new survey from Statistics Canada found.

The data from the Survey Series on People and their Communities found a number of Canadians are very or extremely concerned about misinformation — defined as news or information that is false, inaccurate or misleading, regardless of intent — posted online, with 59 per cent expressing these feelings.

Canadians say it’s becoming more difficult to discern between fact and fiction even compared to three years ago, when misinformation and disinformation — false information purposefully intended to mislead — began circulating about various issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Timothy Caulfield, a University of Alberta professor in the Faculty of Law and School of Public Health, said this growing concern is not surprising.

“This really is an era of misinformation and other research, international research, has found similar results in fact in some jurisdictions, and even higher concern about misinformation right up there with climate change in some places,” he told Global News in an interview.

Caulfield says the difficulty people are facing in telling apart fact from fiction is due to several reasons. He said research has shown information overload can make people more susceptible to misinformation, but on top of that, misinformation and disinformation is becoming more sophisticated. He said the “misinformation mongers” are becoming more adept with resources out there to use, including images, text and even fake science in a “more sophisticated” way.

But in addition to that, there is a “universal distrust” in the public and those spreading false or misleading information have a goal of spreading distrust which in turn creates even more chances of minformation.

Often, when faced with misinformation, people look to fact check what is being said and the survey found 96 per cent of the population has verified information they encountered at some point. Yet on a regular basis, only 17 per cent say they always use at least one additional source to verify the accuracy of news stories, while another 36 per cent stated they often fact check and just 32 per cent said they “sometimes do.”