Do influencers verify the information they share ? A priori no, for the most part…

© Unsplash/Mateus Campos Felipe

It is a recent UNESCO study that has been much talked about in recent days, the latter focusing on the sacrosanct “influencers”. Indeed, for several long years now, Internet users have built communities around themselves on various social networks, and are responsible for proposing news, files, product presentations&#8230 Obviously, in addition to the principle of “neutrality“, there is also the question of disinformation.

High risks of disinformation among influencers ?

On YouTube, but also on Instagram or TikTok, we find influencers specialized in almost all areas. Cosmetics, makeup, fashion, video games, tech, cooking… Everything is now a pretext to “influence“, and if possible to glean a few tickets, a few partnerships and other products offered via a “commercial collaboration“. Today, social networks (and therefore influencers) have become the main source of information for young people.

And this inevitably raises some questions… Also, the study conducted by UNESCO looked at several hundred content creators, spread across fifty countries. And for more than 60% of them, the information shared with their respective audiences is simply not verified in advance.

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© Pexels/Liza Summer

There is a simple reason for this: the importance of being the first to cover a news story, in order to glean a maximum number of views, comments and shares. And so much the worse for approximations. Worse still, for more than 40% of influencers, this same number of views/likes is a criterion that allows them to verify the veracity of information. The more popular a content is, the more authentic it would be, therefore…

Among the sources that allow information to be verified, the media are only taken into account in 30% of cases, while official sources (from a government for example) are only used in 12% of cases. In order to combat possible massive disinformation, UNESCO has launched a training course for videographers, in partnership with the University of Texas.

“Digital content creators have acquired a major place, but many struggle to confront disinformation and hate speech online“, says Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO. It must be said that some social networks, notably the X network, very widely promote divisive speeches and other forms of disinformation of all kinds.

More generally, it is often controversial content and other “dramas” which are favored by algorithms, more inclined to valuable engagement, to the detriment of more documented/benevolent content.

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