Misinformation was nearly three times more common in places with little or no recognised local journalism, and more than 4.4 million people in the UK live in a news desert. The Social Market Foundation says local online groups are filling that gap with false claims, leaving residents to sort fact from fiction in the places they trust most.
Chi Onwurah and the 4.4 million
Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the science and technology select committee, called the findings “deeply concerning”. That reaction lands alongside the report’s sharper warning: the study describes local online groups as “the silent killer of trust in Britain”.
The study analysed more than 125,000 social media posts across local Facebook groups, X searches and Nextdoor communities. It found misinformation in areas with little or no recognised local journalism, and it found that pattern across Britain rather than in one isolated place.
Facebook, X and Nextdoor
The most common misinformation topics across Facebook and X were immigration and Islamophobia. The study also found faked local authority communications, AI-generated content and misleading claims of councils behaving corruptly, which points to a mix of crude hoaxes and more polished false posts.
Among the examples were a post falsely suggesting Birmingham council meetings had stopped being conducted in English altogether, a false expansion of London’s congestion charge and a claim about a plan to make the countryside less white. Those are not abstract online misfires; they are targeted at local debates that shape how people judge councils, transport and community relations.
Gorton and Denton groups
The sharpest local spike came in Gorton and Denton, south-east Manchester, where misinformation was detected in three out of four local groups during the recent byelection. In those groups, 6.5% of news-related posts amounted to misinformation, and false information was found relating to the Greens, Reform and Labour.
The report says misinformation grew as a share of news posts by 56% in the run-up to polling day compared with earlier in the year. That share rose from 8.2% to 12.9%, which shows how quickly the volume can climb when campaigning intensifies and local groups become a louder part of the information mix.
A fifth of all fake news posts in Facebook groups related to local issues, including planning decisions, transport, local services and council politics. For readers in news deserts, the practical problem is not just seeing more false posts; it is seeing fewer dependable local sources to challenge them before they spread.
Matthew Goodwin, the Reform candidate in Gorton and Denton, was the target of one false quote in the material: “Mancunians are thick.” The study’s findings leave one immediate question for residents and candidates alike, and it is the one that matters most before the next round of local campaigning: who is checking the local groups now that the falsehoods are already circulating?
