00:04You're watching Euronews' fact-checking show, The Cube.
00:07These days, on social media, anyone can present themselves as an expert,
00:11and they don't need any proof to back this up.
00:13As mistrust in experts becomes increasingly common,
00:17some social media users are finding ways to reach a wide audience
00:20to spread conspiracy theories and online misinformation.
00:23We spoke to researchers who focused on a sample group in the US before zooming out
00:27to assess the wide impact of these kinds of social media trends.
00:31We found that the most trusted source people have is a celebrity expert, that combination.
00:38So if there's a celebrity doctor, like someone who is a White House advisor
00:43and has millions of followers and is a doctor, that person has the highest credibility.
00:47Someone who is just a celebrity, not an expert, they have the second highest credibility.
00:53The third are people who have professional titles in their bios.
00:57The thing is, anyone can have any title on Instagram.
01:00I can call myself microbiologist. I'm not.
01:03Researchers warn that it only takes a few social media posts for users to form strong opinions
01:08on a topic they know nothing about.
01:10The threshold for people to start believing that they are experts is very low.
01:15If you are exposed to five to seven consistent information points,
01:20you start acting like an expert.
01:22So whether that information that you are getting is true or false does not matter.
01:27Information which is legitimate and provides further important context,
01:30but which reaches social media users later on,
01:33risks having very little impact on people's opinions.
01:36You become an expert and once you start thinking like that,
01:39you believe every other piece of information that is fact-checking or questioning your beliefs
01:44as an attack on your personality, as an attack on your core-held beliefs
01:48and your own beliefs will get stronger and stronger.
01:50It doesn't get weaker.
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