Young people particularly vulnerable to disinformation and fake news

After the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, the scale of disinformation and fake news on the Internet has increased considerably. 

“There are thousands of entries to our trol reporting project every day,” Marcin Żukowski, co-founder of the ZglosTrolla.pl platform (eng. report the trol), said.

Although awareness of propaganda mechanisms is growing, many people are still being fooled. Especially young people who are aware of the world primarily from social media.

“Fake news is part of our daily life on the Internet, because we all use the internet. Many people are checking their smartphones on the wake and can be called fake news receivers. And in war, the amount of this fake news is growing and our awareness of fake news is growing,” Marcin Żukowski added.

From the report published just before the outbreak of the war by the Digital Foundation, it results that eight out of ten Poles have come into contact with fake news. Three-quarters of the respondents indicate that they are intentionally sending out, but still many people are able to receive this false information. Young people, who spend a lot of time on social media and trust them, are particularly vulnerable. For 2/3 people they are the main source of news about Poland and the world.

(Newseria)