Report “Social media very widely used, use for news and information about COVID-19 declining”

The report examines the use of social media to get news and information about the coronavirus pandemic in the UK based on a survey fielded from 18 to 24 June 2020. Among its highlights:

• the use of social media has remained broadly consistent during the coronavirus pandemic, with a slight decline following the lockdown surge in Internet use in April
• however, the use of many social networks specifically for news and information about COVID-19 fell from April to June as it became a less prominent news story and COVID-19 news use fell more generally
• Facebook and Twitter are the social networks most widely-used for news and information about COVID-19
• just 10% say that they trust news and information about COVID-19 on social media, video sites and messaging apps
• around half of those who see news about COVID-19 on social media say they mostly see conflicting facts about it

The report is the sixth in a series of ten Factsheets included in the UK COVID-19 news and information project that analyses how the British public navigates information and misinformation about coronavirus and about how the government and other institutions are responding to the pandemic.