Seven in ten Dutch people sometimes doubt the reliability of information they encounter online. This is evident from new figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). People doubt information on social media more often than messages on news websites. And younger people are more critical than older people: while at least three quarters of 12 to 65 year olds indicate that they have seen or read information in the past three months that was not true, or that they have doubted its truth, this applies to only half of those over 65.
Those who do have doubts do not always decide to do something about it. Of the doubters who have recently checked information online, the vast majority (84 percent) say they did so by looking up more information online. More than half check the original source. In addition, approximately 30 percent discuss the information with others outside the internet, or search for more information via offline channels.
The research not only looked at doubt, but also at the reasons for checking or not checking information. The most common reason for not doing anything when in doubt is that people already knew that the source or information was not reliable. This especially applies to highly educated people, while in general they check most often whether something is correct or not. About 20 percent of all respondents indicate that they simply do not know how to check the reliability. Nearly 10 percent find checking too complicated.
The number of people who indicate that they doubt online information has been increasing for years. In 2021 that was still 63 percent; in 2023 this increased to 67 percent. Messages on social media in particular cause more distrust: doubts about this have increased most strongly in the past four years.
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