Fake news? Brits are too sceptical to fall for it

It has been responsible for swaying the US election and spreading risky conspiracy theories.
So it might be soothing to know that Britain is among the world's slightest gullible nations - and readers rarely fall for false news.

Data from Ipsos Mori shows that one in three British people admits to having being tricked by a "fake news" article, among the lowest levels in the world.

This compares to almost semi of those in the USA, Russia and Australia.
Brazil had the highest level of vulnerability to fake news, with 62 per cent of respondents from the country saying they had believed a false news story, with Saudi Arabia not far behind.

Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos Mori's social research institute, said that British public were less likely to be incorrect when asked to estimate figures such as the level of immigration and the amount of Muslims in the UK than people in other countries such as Italy and the USA.

The UK is a "sceptical and calculating nation", he said.

He added that newspapers and broadcasters were  "well-regulated comparative to lots of the additional countries that we've asked.

"There is an element of we don't know how superior we've got it in terms of the fakery that goes on in the media in additional countries. We're lucky in not having that exposure to fabricated news stories," he told the Daily Telegraph.

However, the survey, released to mark the open of Mr Duffy's book The Perils of Perception, also found that British people have small faith in their peers to detect false news, with just 28 per cent saying they were sure in the average person's capability to tell it apart from the real thing, among the lowest level in any country surveyed.

Social media has been responsible for reducing the opportunity for people to argue their views with people who disagree by making it easier for public to only see things which cater to their preconceptions.

And almost one in three British populace also admitted to "living in a bubble" online, spending time speaking to people and analysis stories which confirmed their political beliefs.