Who is susceptible to (political) disinformation? Evidence from Flanders, Belgium

Which citizens are most susceptible to disinformation that is spread online? In this report, we investigate patterns of susceptibility to disinformation, defined here as a combination of exposure to, and belief in, disinformation. We present survey evidence gathered amongst citizens living in the region of Flanders, which is the largest region of Belgium. First, we consider to what extent citizens’ socio-demographic characteristics and socio-political attitudes help us understand which citizens are more (or less) likely to get exposed to, and believe, false claims. In other words: which citizens encounter disinformation, and/or accept it as truth? Second, we zoom in on the effect of exposure to disinformation online: to what extent does exposure to disinformation online lead citizens to increasingly believe these false claims? Our findings indicate that especially citizens who get their information through online channels such as news aggregators tend to have both higher exposure to, and belief in, disinformation. Relatedly, younger citizens tend to attribute greater credibility to disinformation, as do citizens that self-position on the right of the political spectrum. We also find strong evidence that those citizens who believe general conspiracy theories, have a high propensity to also accept specific disinformation campaigns. Moreover, our experimental evidence finds that exposure to social media messages containing disinformation increases citizens’ belief in the disinformation, which is worrisome. We also demonstrate that warning messages implemented by social media platforms only partially mitigate the impact of disinformation campaigns.