The Full Fact Report 2020 Fighting the causes and consequences of bad information THE FULL FACT REPORT 2020 Full Fact is the UK’s independent fact checking charity. About this report Full Fact fights bad information. We do this in four main ways. We fact check claims made by politicians, public institutions, in the press and online. We then follow up on these, to stop and reduce the spread of specific claims. We campaign for systems changes to help make bad information rarer and less harmful, and advocate for higher standards in public debate. This report is based on the evidence we have built up over the last ten years, with a particular focus on 2019. It is the first of three annual reports that we are able to produce thanks to the support of the Nuffield Foundation. The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social well-being. It funds research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare, and Justice. It also funds student programmes that provide opportunities for young people to develop skills in quantitative and scientific methods. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Ada Lovelace Institute. The Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org This report was written by Rebecca Hill and staff at Full Fact and the contents are the responsibility of the Chief Executive. They may or may not reflect the views of members of Full Fact’s cross-party Board of Trustees. 2 fullfact.org Fighting the causes and consequences of bad information We would like to extend our warmest thanks to Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Mark Franks for their comments on an earlier version of this report, and to Eugene Smith for his contribution to Full Fact’s research on misleading headlines. In addition, we thank our other supporters, the trustees and other volunteers of Full Fact. Full details of our funding are available at fullfact.org/about/funding We would welcome any thoughts or comments to our policy manager Rebecca Hill, at [email protected]. Full Fact, 2020 Full Fact 2 Carlton Gardens London SW1Y 5AA k [email protected] m +44 (0)20 3397 5140 D @FullFact K fullfact.org Published by Full Fact, April 2020 Registered Charity number 1158683 Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License fullfact.org 3 THE FULL FACT REPORT 2020 Contents Full Fact is the UK’s independent fact checking charity. ........................................................................2 About this report ..............................................................................................................................................2 Bad information ruins lives............................................................................................................................6 Part One: Introduction ..................................................................................................................................8 The unlikely journey of good information ............................................................................................8 Principles .......................................................................................................................................................9 How bad information causes harm ..................................................................................................... 10 Disengagement from democracy .................................................................................................. 10 Interference in democracy .............................................................................................................. 12 Economic harm .................................................................................................................................. 14 Risks to life .......................................................................................................................................... 15 Efforts to tackle bad information ........................................................................................................ 17 Fact checking ...................................................................................................................................... 17 Approaches by governments and internet companies ............................................................ 19 Part Two: Themes ......................................................................................................................................... 23 Information accessibility ....................................................................................................................... 23 Public health ............................................................................................................................................. 27 Novel coronavirus ............................................................................................................................... 27 Vaccines ................................................................................................................................................ 30 5G ........................................................................................................................................................... 32 Elections .................................................................................................................................................... 36 Political advertising ............................................................................................................................ 36 Online campaigns .............................................................................................................................. 38 Offline campaigns ..............................................................................................................................40 How bad information affects the public during an election .................................................... 41 Polling ......................................................................................................................................................... 43 Zombie claims .......................................................................................................................................... 47 Relentless zombies ............................................................................................................................. 47 Slippery zombies .................................................................................................................................48 The people’s zombies ........................................................................................................................ 49 Part Three: Who is responsible for spreading bad information .................................................... 52 Government, public bodies, parliament and politicians ................................................................ 52 Trust in the government and politicians ....................................................................................... 52 The information public bodies produce ........................................................................................ 54 Misinterpreting statistics ................................................................................................................. 56 Misleading use of statistics .............................................................................................................. 58 Cherry-picking information .............................................................................................................. 60 Unpublished and unsubstantiated information ........................................................................ 62 4 fullfact.org Fighting the causes and consequences of bad information Claiming credit and placing the blame ......................................................................................... 65 Spending figures ................................................................................................................................. 67 Correcting the record ........................................................................................................................ 68 Media .......................................................................................................................................................... 72 Trust in media...................................................................................................................................... 72 Problems the media face .................................................................................................................. 74 Bias: real or imagined? ...................................................................................................................... 75 “You won’t see this in the mainstream media” ..................................................................... 75 Misleading headlines ......................................................................................................................... 76 Uncritical reporting ............................................................................................................................ 78 Polling .............................................................................................................................................