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

The social media platform Facebook is one of several that MPs say must do more to combat fake news. Photograph: Joel Goodman

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.