#NepalSocial
A majority of Nepali social media users are exposed to misinformation online, according to a new survey by the Center for Media Research, Nepal, a non-governmental organisation.
The survey results show that more than nine in 10 social media users in Nepal receive misinformation online, CMR-Nepal said in a statement.
“Nepal Social Media Users Survey 2021 was conducted by CMR-Nepal in November 2021 and its new report was based on 403 valid responses. Among which 15 per cent identified themselves as female.”
Among the huge majority of the respondents, about 91.8 per cent said they have seen misinformation online in the last seven days, the report said. Those who had not seen any disinformation online in a week were 7.5 per cent, it added.
According to the CMR-Nepal survey, Facebook is the most popular app where most social media users see disinformation. By disinformation, the reports mean false information which is intended to mislead whereas misinformation means false or inaccurate information.
“As 79.8 per cent of respondents who saw misinformation said they saw it on the social networking site. Among them, 23.3 per cent said they only saw misinformation on Facebook and not on any other platforms,” the report added.
YouTube, the video streaming site, had 48.1 per cent of respondents who were exposed to misinformation, whereas 36.3 per cent were on Twitter, it said.
The respondents who saw misinformation on other websites were 30.3 per cent, and nearly nine per cent couldn’t remember the platform they saw misinformation on.
Many of the users saw misinformation in multiple platforms as only 25.8 per cent of those who have seen misinformation named only one platform.
When asked if misinformation is already a problem or will be a problem for society and politics, 97.8 per cent of the respondents said “they think misinformation is or will be a problem and only a very few, 0.2 per cent, believe it not a problem now”.
While 49 per cent of all respondents put the media as the most responsible agency to tackle misinformation online, 47 per cent put the government on the most responsible side, it added.
