Fake news frequency in Europe 2018, by country

Encountering fake news is, for the majority of European citizens, a weekly or daily occurrence. According to a 2018 survey across all 28 European member states, 37 percent come across fake news every day, or almost every day. However, fake news was encountered more often in some countries than in others.

Fake news prevalence in Europe

In Greece, 55 percent of people said they saw false news every day. And in Spain, just one in five stated that they saw fake news less than once a week. At the other end of the scale, 18 percent in Finland said they encountered fake news every day, or almost every day.

Trust in media

With the ever-growing presence of fake news in our daily lives, we are starting to think more about the information we can trust. Levels of trust for different types of media are changing, with fewer people trusting the internet and online social networks, and more people trusting in the written press.