Reality Gap Index

NewsGuard has published its eighth edition of the “Reality Gap Index,” the nation’s first ongoing measurement of Americans’ propensity to believe the top false claims circulating online each quarter.

In a quarterly survey, previously monthly, of a representative sample of Americans conducted by YouGov, the Reality Gap Index measures the percentage of Americans who believe at least one of the quarter’s top false claims. False claims are sourced from NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints datastream, which tracks provably false information with significant spread online. Respondents are quizzed on the top three claims circulating each quarter, determined by an assessment of each claim’s virality, spread, impact, and potential for harm.

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