80% of Canadians saw misinformation at least once last month: StatCan - BERITAJA

New information from Statistics Canada shows that 80 per cent of Canadians deliberation they are seeing “misleading, false, aliases inaccurate” accusation online astatine slightest erstwhile a month.

The latest Insights connected Canadian Society study examined the “sources and platforms done which Canadians entree news aliases information, really often they study encountering misleading information,” and whether Canadians find it “increasingly difficult to separate betwixt existent and mendacious information.”

The study besides looked astatine the narration betwixt misinformation, assurance successful the Canadian media and spot successful others.

Sixty-one per cent of Canadians reported being “very concerned” aliases “extremely concerned” about online misinformation successful 2025, according to the data.

Nearly half of Canadians (47 per cent) besides reported they are uncovering it “harder to separate betwixt existent and mendacious news aliases information” compared to 3 years prior.

Canadians besides reported that they trust connected different news sources and a “similar proportionality of Canadians of each ages reported difficulties successful telling truth from falsehood.”

It was besides reported that “a beardown assurance successful the Canadian media was little apt to study that it has go harder to show existent from mendacious news aliases information,” (44 per cent) compared pinch those pinch little assurance successful the Canadian media (49 per cent).

In contrast, little assurance successful the Canadian media was associated pinch “greater self-reported trouble successful identifying misleading content.”

“People now look the added work of questioning whether what they spot and publication online is accurate, while besides being much apt to brushwood blase forms of misleading aliases mendacious content, specified arsenic fabricated content, manipulated images and deepfakes (i.e., misleading videos aliases images generated by artificial intelligence),” the study states.

The study besides recovered that women (65 per cent) were much apt than men (58 per cent) to get accusation from “close contacts.”

Meanwhile, men (38 per cent) were much apt than women (31 per cent) to usage video and audio streaming platforms to get information.

Previous investigation by Statistics Canada besides recovered that men (73 per cent) were somewhat much apt than women (70 per cent) to watch user-generated videos online successful 2022.

Also successful the aforesaid year, much than 7 successful 10 Canadians (72 per cent) reported having watched user-generated videos successful the erstwhile 3 months. This percent was higher among Canadians nether the property of 35 (88 per cent).

“Frequent depletion of this type of contented could perchance lead to the statement of trusting parasocial relationships pinch contented creators, which whitethorn beryllium 1 facet contributing to video and audio streaming platforms being among the about often-cited accusation sources,” the 2026 study reads.

Canadians were recovered to about typically get news aliases accusation from news organizations (66 per cent), adjacent contacts (62 per cent), societal media platforms (54 per cent) and tv programming (52 per cent).

However, immoderate accepted accusation sources, specified arsenic power (38 per cent) and people media (21 per cent), were little often reported.

More than three-quarters of Canadians aged 75 years and older (78 per cent) relied connected news organizations to person information, compared pinch adjacent to half (49 per cent) of Canadians aged 15 to 24.

Among Canadians nether 35, societal media was the about communal root for news aliases accusation astatine 78 per cent. Its usage dropped to 19 per cent among those 75 and older.