On TikTok, young French people increasingly distrustful of science

The TikTok platform, very popular with young people, is a place where a lot of fake news circulates.

REUTERS - Dado Ruvic

Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow

2 mins

A new Ifop poll published on January 12, which was conducted among a representative sample of 11-24 year olds, highlighted a worrying phenomenon on social networks.

That of the growing distrust of young French Internet users with regard to science.

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Almost one in six young people on all networks and almost one in three who visit the Chinese platform

TikTok daily 

believe that " 

it is possible that the Earth is flat

 ", that " 

the Egyptian pyramids were built by extraterrestrials

 " or even that " 

modern human beings are the result of a long evolution

 ".

This duly noted disenchantment between teens and science is growing at the rate of publications that conspiracy theorists disseminate en masse in short videos, and mainly on TikTok.  

In detail, young Internet users consider that “scientific discoveries have done more harm than good” to humanity, to the great despair of scientific agencies such as the National Center for Space Studies (CNES).

The CNES, however, is one of the rare institutions to have invested in the Chinese social network in an attempt to thwart the "

alternative truths

" that are spreading online.

But it is clear that after two years, the CNES TikTok account has only garnered 5,000 subscribers.

Astrology and occultism at the top of the consultations

The other lesson from

this survey

, which was commissioned by the

Jean-Jaurès

Foundation and the

Reboot Foundation

, is that young people adhere more to pseudosciences that would be able to offer them an enchanted and simplified vision of the world.

Astrology and occultism thus find themselves at the head of their consultations on social networks.

Result: 45% of young Internet users believe that messenger RNA vaccines can kill children or that “ 

one can abort without risk with plant-based products

 ”. 

The survey explains why young people would be more sensitive to the big canards of pseudosciences than their elders.

The health crisis was a period conducive to the rise of this disinformation in a context of general mistrust of the authorities and the explanations of researchers.

A rejection of the official discourse which would even be exacerbated if, for example, an “ 

influencer

 ” is at the origin of a fake news or peddles a scientific untruth.

Flat Earth for 3% of seniors

More than 40% of TikTok users believe that the number of subscribers to a personality's account is rather a guarantee of reliability of information.

Parents should perhaps train their teenagers to develop critical thinking about the messages they receive online, conclude the authors of the survey.

But small problem, many of them already subscribe to one or more conspiracy theories.

And the Ifop poll reveals that 3% of seniors also think that the Earth is flat. 

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