‘Killer of trust’: social media groups fuel misinformation in UK, report finds

Investigation reveals more than 4.4 million people live in ‘news deserts’ that lack dedicated local reporting

Local social media groups are fuelling misinformation in areas with no reliable sources of news, according to an investigation that reveals the scale of fake news flowing to vulnerable communities across Britain.

Misinformation was nearly three times more common in areas with little or no recognised local journalism, according to a study of tens of thousands of posts seen by the Guardian. Immigration and Islamophobia were the most common topics of misinformation across Facebook and X .

Spikes in misinformation were identified around local elections . Misinformation grew as a share of news posts by 56% in the run-up to polling day, compared with earlier in the year, from 8.2% of all news posts to 12.9%.

The findings, by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank, are based on the analysis of more than 125,000 social media posts across local Facebook groups, X searches and Nextdoor communities. They led to immediate calls for action from senior MPs.

MPs are concerned about the growing influence of unreliable online groups. With the decline and financial peril faced by local news outlets , inaccurate online forums are filling the void.

One MP said the groups in his area were now read in far greater numbers than any local media outlet – and even some national media – yet were run by administrators with no legal experience or who openly supported a particular party.

The authors of the SMF study described local online groups as “the silent killer of trust in Britain”. Their analysis uncovered faked local authority communications, AI-generated content and misleading claims of councils behaving corruptly.