GB News viewers more likely to wrongly believe net migration to UK rising, study finds

18 comments

1. Can see what the guardian are doing. Net migration *might only be 500,000 next year* so everybody needs to calm down!

2. and it will continue as long as Ofcom sits back and allows disinformation to be spread without much/any consequence

3. Remember folks migration will happen as long as people are willing to migrate, once places like India start have crises caused by their birth rate decline we are fucked, every single country can’t rely on immigrants.

4. And yet, whenever I say this migration panic is social media-driven, I get downvoted lol

5. If you look at the numbers the majority no matter the news they watch thought net migration went up.

   > However, the latest research found 84% of frequent GB News viewers believe new migration has increased. That fell to 71% of ITV frequent viewers, 62% for BBC viewers and 51% of the Channel 4 audience.

   It’s probably a bit like the inflation thing. Inflations down! Can’t be the prices are still going up. Yeah, down doesn’t mean negative. More people are here today than were here last year. Significantly more.

   We still had a net migration of 431k last year. Which is the third highest amount in a single year EVER. It’s more net migration than 1987-1997 combined.

   It’s also in the back of the two record breaking years where we had over 800k net migration two years in a row.

   Migration is cumulative. Unless you’re looking at statistics you’re not going to see much difference in a single reporting year. How would the average person know whether someone arrived in 2023 vs 2024.

6. Unsurprising, GB News isn’t journalism by their own admission – they’re an entertainment channel.

   They’re essentially chatting shit, by deeply unqualified, biased individuals with their own agendas for the entertainment of incredibly gullible, easily persuaded people who lack critical thinking skills.

7. With Farage on the thumbnail, I think it is key to remember he[wants to help rich people avoid tax.](https://share.google/vC5LYrbzI8PpY7Yw6)

8. This is why I very much dislike channels like GBNews or Fox News, in a normal system they would be held to account for their misinformation but in this system its almost like they have carte blanche to lie through their teeth to bring about a far right government.

9. And coincidentally also count using their fingers and toes 

10. BBC News being sold out to Torys and Sky becoming owned by a billionaire American company that obviously doesn’t want to pay taxes are the breeding ground for these new right wing news channels popping up. The Fox News way of tricking the working class into voting against their best interest when you have a scapegoat works and they’re replicating that to the UK. The way BBC even glazed Charlie Kirk was weird to watch he is a religious Christian extremist like since when did we care about Christian weirdos.

11. I think the perceived problem is more that net migration is massively positive, not that it’s a bit higher or lower than last year. And I think the majority of Reform voters are actually mainly bothered about small boats and bogus asylum claims rather than care workers. But hey, I might be wrong.

12. I suppose they’re technically wrong on a year by year basis, because the Boriswave was so ridiculous, but net migration *is* still higher than any year pre-2020, and around 4 times higher than a lot of people think is a sustainable level (~100k).

13. At this point you could argue guardian readers are more misinformed than GBnews viewers

14. If they are getting their news from gbeebies then sadly they are beyond help. The channel is a misinformation campaign aimed at misleading those too dim to question whatever they are told

15. Just ignoring any question about immigration for a second.

    Is it not actually ***fucking mental*** that one single issue can absolutely dominate the entire national discourse for such a ridiculously prolonged period as immigration has done, and still somehow despite consuming media regarding it day-in day-out *for years* somehow there’s not a single group in this study where even just a slim majority actually know what is really happening with the current situation?

    That is *deeply* shocking and concerning imo. This country is getting addicted to media slop and its going to destroy us.

16. I mean it’s a form of confirmation bias (kind of, since technically misinformation wouldn’t count). People believe what they want to, that’s just how a lot of humans operate.

17. Lovely bit of ragebait, the guardian are getting bold.

    When people are told about migration going up, they immediately think of illegal migration.

    Since student visas being down, and skilled worker visas being down massively due to recent changes that made it harder to get, and the large Ukraine humanitarian effort being far past its zenith, net migration is indeed down.

    But small boat crossings are up. And that’s what people are concerned about. So you could trick them with the wording, or maybe they didn’t read the question properly, but it doesn’t change how they feel or that what they’re concerned about is occurring.

18. Surely that belief is not incorrect? If it’s still 400k+ net this year, then yes, net migration is increasing. The *rate of increase* may be decreasing, but that’s not the same thing, is it? They just chose an imprecise question to let them decide who has given the rigth answer.

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