A new survey of internet users around the globe conducted by IPSOS on behalf of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), in partnership with the Internet Society (ISOC) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), unveils that social media companies are among the most common sources of distrust in the internet surpassed only by cyber criminals. More, the lake of transparency and the absence of human element for cloud decision making are impacting the confidence in algorithms.
The new area of Social Media distrust
Facebook was the most commonly cited source of fake news (77%) followed by 62% of Twitter users and 74% of social media users in general, thus contributing to the global lack of trust.
10% of Twitter users said they had closed their Twitter account in the past year as a direct result of fake news, while 9% of Facebook users reported doing the same.
One-third of respondents (35%) pointed to the United States as the country most responsible for the disruptive effect of fake news in their country, trailed significantly by Russia (12%) and China (9%).
Most of the respondents support all efforts aimed at combating fake news, whether by the termination of social media accounts (76%), the removal of fake news post or tweets (79%) , or the government censorship of online content (55%).
The awareness of algorithms unbiasedness
A closer look on algorithms perception reveals that the most common reasons for a lack of confidence in the unbiasedness of algorithms were a lack of transparency, a perception that they are exploitative by design and the absence of a human element from decision-making.
By contrast, objectivity, a lack of human emotion to cloud decision-making and the absence of human influence were most frequently mentioned by those who expressed confidence in the unbiasedness of algorithms.
Confidence was highest in algorithms used for facial recognition systems (47%) and search engines (46%), and lowest in algorithms used for social media news feeds (32%) and predictive
policing (34%).
About Data privacy concerns
The survey reveals that 69 % of French people are concerned about their online privacy with over half (47%) more than a year ago. 70% of French respondents want their online data and personal information to be stored in France.
A majority of internet users around the globe support all efforts by governments and internet companies to combat fake news, from social media and video sharing platforms deleting fake news posts and videos (85%) and accounts (84%) to the adoption of automated approaches to content removal (79%) and government censorship of online content (61%). The lowest confidence levels remains in North America (38%) and the G-8 countries (39%).
Blockchains and crypto currency perception
7 in 10 people familiar with blockchain technology (2 in 10 in France) believe that t will affect every sector of the economy (68%), that it should be implemented as widely as possible (67%), and that it will have an impact equivalent to the advent of the internet (67%).
NB. The 2019 CIGI-Ipsos Global Survey was conducted between December 21, 2018, and February 10, 2019, and involved 25,229 internet users in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States.