Trust in online information: a long, deep drop

Trust in online information: a steady decline

Since the Center for the Digital Future first started tracking Internet use 26 years ago, trust in the reliability of online information has been in steady decline. That helps to explain our polarization today. Center Director Jeffrey Cole explains.

By Jeffrey Cole

The Center for the Digital Future has been tracking the Internet continuously for 26 years through our World Internet Project (WIP). The work in the U.S. and over thirty other countries is the longest and most comprehensive digital project in the world. This column is part of an ongoing series looking at several of the critical Internet issues that only we can compare. Previously we looked at 25 years of users perceptions whether the Internet and smartphones have made the world a better or worse place.

In America, we are in the final weeks of a bitterly contested presidential election that is ending far differently than it began. One of the only constants has been the constant spread of misinformation. Now, it seems impossible for some Americans to look at their varied news sources and determine whether household pets are being eaten in Ohio, did one of the candidates actually work at a McDonald’s, and did the other save or attempt to destroy the Affordable care Act (Obamacare).

The days of having a Walter Cronkite who was “the most trusted man in America” to both sides of the political divide are long gone. The sources one side trusts are completely abhorrent to the other. In the past 26 years, online information has eradicated the business model for traditional news media, adding unverified—and often, unreliable—information to the news mix.

The worst possible case appears to be coming true: not being sure what to trust makes many of us suspicious of all information. We believe nothing unless it comes from our tribe (one of the worst possible sources) .

In the beginning…

When we first started looking at American perceptions of the reliability of online information, printed newspapers had high circulation, and the ratings for the top network news broadcasts were healthy. Although Internet penetration was over 60%, there were still 100 million not online. Internet users were not yet using digital as an important news source.

In 1999, we started asking internet users how much of online information do they find reliable. It was difficult to generalize about a medium with so many sources. The question was/is designed to be in line with ninety years of Roper and Gallup surveys that asked consumers how much of the information in newspapers and on radio (and then, starting in the 1950s, television) they believed was credible.

In our first results, 25 years ago, 58% of everyone online found most or all the information they read on the Internet to be reliable. Only 5% felt that none or only a small amount of online information was reliable. 38% saw half of the information they consumed online to be accurate.

It was surprising that so many would trust all or most online information, and it seemed logical that most would gravitate to a more equivocal “about half.” In those early days, there was great hope and optimism that the Internet would make more news sources available. That now seems naïve, since the intervening years have brought so much polarization and mistrust.

In the following five years, perhaps as more demographically diverse people got online, the numbers began to drop in a slide that lasted until 2005, but then increased somewhat, but still below the peak levels of 2001.   Those trusting about half rose from 38% in 2001 to about 44% in 2005.

Those gains came completely from the percentages that had been trusting most of the information. Those trusting little or no information also went up, although slightly by about 2%. Real skepticism was still low and would not grow for another few years.

The early hope of the 2000 Internet that “anyone could publish a newspaper” turned out to be true, just not in the optimistic way we had hoped. Reliable, professional news information is still out there, but it supplies a river of information surrounded by an ocean of misinformation.  The mission of great news organizations is to provide reliable and accurate information so that fair minded people can understand the day’s events. That mission has been corrupted.

In 2006, during the second term of George W. Bush, the credibility of online information returned to almost the 2001 levels.  This was just before social media would become a massively important information force, and also before people started using their phones to go online. The numbers were highest just as the Internet was finishing its first phase.

The Obama years: 2008 to 2016

By 2009, when Facebook and other social media had become a way of life, and broadband made video possible on the Internet, trust in digital information entered the first of several serious declines.

In 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration, trust in most or all the information online was at 40%, a drop of 10 points in four years and 15 points in nine years. That is a steep erosion of trust of the Internet as a news source. Complete distrust of the value of Internet information was at 16% in 2009, an increase of 12 points in nine years. And those trusting half of what they saw digitally stayed consistent at 46%.

The overall trust of online news sources remained relatively steady for the next six years, through the end of Obama’s term in office. It was also a period when, finally, America could say that just about everyone who wanted to be online was. Broadband had also come to the vast majority of homes, schools, and offices.

Trump, Biden, Harris: 2016 to the present

As America was entering the 2016 election cycle, the loss of advertising from television and newspapers to the Internet, especially Facebook and Google, had seriously weakened traditional media. Newspapers were closing at alarming rates. Those that survived closed bureaus, laid off staff, and were emaciated shells of what they had been 20 years earlier—when they underestimated the digital threat. The same was true of broadcast and cable television.

The 2016 election campaign was the first with an electorate overwhelmingly tied to the Internet through social media, texting, and other online sources. The loss of professional reporters and highly trained editors—serving as gatekeepers who kept bad information out of the news cycle—accelerated how dangerous the quality of news had become.

By 2020, trust in online information had plummeted to its lowest point, where it has stayed ever since.

Those who had trusted most of the Internet’s information had sunk to 25%, a drop of thirty-three points since we began tracking. This is the credibility floor literally dropping out. Those believing little or no information online rose to a very depressing 24%, a gain of 19 points from our first survey. Those trusting about half the information (probably their half) was at 51%, a gain of 13%.

The early hope of the 2000 Internet that “anyone could publish a newspaper” turned out to be true, just not in the optimistic way we had hoped. Reliable, professional news information is still out there, but it supplies a river of information surrounded by an ocean of misinformation. Shortening the great Daniel P. Moynihan quote, everyone now has their own facts.

The mission of great news organizations is to provide reliable and accurate information so that fair minded people can understand the day’s events. That mission has been corrupted.

Much of what the Internet has brought to us enhances quality, utility, and fun in our lives. We are now living in a fully connected world. But the collapse of many traditional news sources—replaced by rumor and conspiracy theories—is the dark side of the Internet equation.

The quality of news benefitted, as did we, when the information came from highly trained writers and editors committed to truth and ethical standards. Those days are a distant memory. Most of us don’t even know this transition has even happened.

It’s a terrible legacy.
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Jeffrey Cole is the founder and director of The Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg.

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October 9, 2024