A new report published by Statistics Canada surveys Canadian media consumption habits in the COVID era and paints a worrying picture about the extent of the infodemic crisis and underscores the need for disinformation monitoring platforms like DisinfoWatch.
The report states that during the pandemic, “nine in ten Canadians (90%) used online sources to find information about COVID-19.”
Most shockingly, a majority of Canadians (53%) reported sharing COVID information in the first months of the pandemic without knowing whether it was accurate.
Of those who got their information online, 96% said that they saw information that they suspected was “misleading, false or inaccurate” and 25% report seeing such reports several times a day.
