Pew survey of 24,525 people from 19 countries shows 70% rate misinformation as a “major threat”, compared to 75% for climate change and 67% for cyberattacks
New research from the Pew Research Center shows nearly three-quarters of respondents are very concerned about the spread of false information online. Tweets: @alicjaptak4 , @nytimes , and @pewresearch Tweets: Alicja Ptak / @alicjaptak4 : The Pew Research Center has just published a new report on how residents of 19 countries, including Poland, asses the risk their countries face - and as we had no shortage of risks in recent years let's dive in on main points re: Poland. THREAD https://www.pewresearch.org/ ... @nytimes : Nearly three-quarters of people across 19 countries believe online misinformation is a “major threat,” according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Its findings show the U.S. is among the countries most concerned about the issue. https://www.nytimes.com/... @pewresearch : In the last five years, there has been a remarkable increase in the share of citizens across different countries who say cyberattacks from other countries are a major threat: https://www.pewresearch.org/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This Pew survey of 24,525 respondents in 19 countries puts misinformation on par with climate change and ahead of cyberattacks as a perceived threat — a global snapshot of a concern that has been building in the related coverage for years. In the US, Pew already found in 2020 that 74% of Americans had little or no confidence in companies like Facebook and Google to stop platform misuse around the election, and by 2021 support for government restriction of false information had risen to 48% from 39% in 2018 (Pew survey of 11,178 US adults).
The 70% figure also predates the AI-content wave: by mid-2024, 52% of US and 63% of UK respondents said they were uneasy with news produced mostly using AI, with worry about false news online up year over year — suggesting the concern this survey captures has only broadened since.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Google and other platform operators face a public that already doubts their moderation competence (74% low confidence in 2020) and now ranks misinformation among the top global threats — raising the cost of any visible moderation failure.
Second-order effects
- With 48% of US adults backing government restriction of false information, up nine points in three years, platforms face pressure to moderate more aggressively pre-emptively or accept regulatory intervention that sets the rules for them.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — 91% of US adults calling misinformation a problem by late 2022, and AI-generated news unease climbing by 2024 — content provenance and moderation shift from brand-safety functions to regulated infrastructure, with the US lagging jurisdictions where platform rules are already being codified.
The trend: Public concern about online misinformation has climbed steadily across surveys since 2017, converting a trust problem for platforms into a standing argument for government content rules.