Ifop, in partnership with Cision, has produced an anti-fake news quiz, designed to assess French people’s ability to spot and understand the mechanisms of misinformation.
The first finding is quite clear: collectively, the French don’t exactly shine. The average score is 5.4 out of 20. 45% of French people score between 0 and 4 out of 20, 44% between 5 and 9, and in total only 11% reach or exceed the average, with only 1% scoring between 15 and 20.
This is not to say that all audiences are equal, however, and some fare slightly better than others: the best scores are clearly found among the youngest and most highly educated. Those under 35 score an average of 6.0 out of 20, and 18-24 year-olds even score 6.7, compared with 4.8 for those aged 65 and over. The same logic applies to education: 7.6 out of 20 for graduates, compared with 4.4 for those with no qualifications. The same divide can be seen when it comes to substantive issues: 80% of the most highly educated know how to define cognitive bias, and 57% correctly identify confirmation bias, confirming that mastery of critical concepts increases sharply with educational capital.
It is interesting to note that the French are especially unequal according to the difficulty of the subjects. For example, 72% understand that social networking algorithms favor content that generates reactions, and 60% know how to correctly define cognitive bias. However, as soon as you get down to the finer points, things get more complicated: only 5% can identify AI-generated articles, and barely 3% can recognize an AI-generated face.
