More people are having doubts about the truthfulness of some information shared online, particularly via social media, a survey into ICT use by statistics agency CBS has shown.

Some 72% of the respondents said they had looked at online information that they thought was false in the last three months, compared to almost 67% in 2023 and 64% in 2021.

Faith in the veracity of information on social media showed a marked decline, with 63% of doubters this year, up from 54% in 2021.

News on news websites is still trusted, the survey showed, with just a quarter claiming the information they read was untrue. That figure has remained stable over the last four years.

People between the ages of 25 and 45 were the least convinced that some of what they were reading was true, with 84% saying they had doubts. The over-65s were the most gullible, although the number of doubters in this group, now 48%, is also going up.

Men more often doubt if information is reliable than women and education also makes a difference. People with a college or university degree have doubts more often (83%) than people with basic education (59%).

Of the people who had doubts, seven in 10 went on to verify the information themselves, either online or offline, or by discussing it with other people. People who didn’t check said they already knew the information was unreliable, while 30% said they did not know how to check or thought it was too complicated.