Colorado Politics

Colorado poll: 65% of Facebook users see online misinformation, 43% admit reposting it

The online pressure group Avaaz has a new poll that suggests 65% of registered voters in nine states, including Colorado, said they had seen political disinformation in their Facebook feeds.

SurveyUSA did the poll of 1,000 registered voters in Colorado between Oct. 14-19 using a representative cross-section o on gender, age, race, education and home-ownership.

Moreover, the survey found that 43% of respondents said they knew some things they put on Facebook were untrue when they post them.

Founded in 2007, Avaaz organizes online petitions and other virtual activism.

It’s subjects tend to favor the left and most of the questions in the report shot down information about Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“We’ve found that there is more disinformation targeting left-leaning narratives,” an Avaaz spokeswoman told Colorado Politics Tuesday.

One example, however, exposed misinformation about the president:

“63% of registered voters saw that ‘Donald Trump will end social security if he is re-elected,’ with 27% believing it to be true and 65% of those who came across the claim seeing it on Facebook.”

Avaaz, like others, is calling on social media platforms to crack down on false claims aimed at dividing and infuriating Americans on false or misleading pretenses.

Facebook found Mark Zukerberg has told Congress, and last month on “Axios on HBO” that the company removes clear misinformation but still must respect free speech.

“Frankly a lot of misinformation comes from cases where there has been some instance of harm, but that people are kind of blowing it out of proportion and people saying it’s more prevalent and common than it actually is,” he said related to vaccines, as an example. “Is it true that sometimes vaccines get mixed incorrectly by a doctor and that causes harm, or is it true that even when a vaccine is helpful for addressing something overall that it may not be 100% effective?

“Yes, both those things are true statements.”

You can watch that interview on misinformation by clicking here.

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