--- title: What happens to trust when attention becomes more... description: An opinion piece by Pin-Social founder Booker Loud argues that social media's attention economy rewards outrage and sensationalism over truth, eroding public... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What happens to trust when attention becomes more valuable than the truth? | daily.dev og:description: An opinion piece by Pin-Social founder Booker Loud argues that social media's attention economy rewards outrage and sensationalism over truth, eroding public... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/gHzYw83Oy.png og:image:alt: What happens to trust when attention becomes more valuable than the truth? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What happens to trust when attention becomes more valuable than the truth? **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An opinion piece by Pin-Social founder Booker Loud argues that social media's attention economy rewards outrage and sensationalism over truth, eroding public trust. He cites the Reuters Institute's 2026 Digital News Report showing global trust in news at 37%, trust in news via social media at 22%, and via AI chatbots at 20%, with 62% globally and 73% of Americans concerned about distinguishing real from fake content online. The piece calls for individual responsibility and platform design choices that reward kindness, connection, and constructive disagreement instead of outrage, with particular concern for the effects on children's social development. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What percentage of people globally trust news they see on social media according to the Reuters Institute 2026 Digital News Report? Trust in news encountered through social media stands at just 22% globally, while trust in news from AI chatbots is even lower at 20%. Overall global trust in news has fallen to 37%. The same report found 62% of respondents worldwide are concerned about distinguishing real from fake content online. _Developers building news or content platforms can track shifting trust benchmarks like these on daily.dev._ ### What percentage of Americans are concerned about telling real news from fake news online? 73% of Americans report concern about distinguishing what is real from what is false in online news, according to Reuters Institute survey data referenced in coverage of the 2026 Digital News Report. This is notably higher than the global average of 62% across all surveyed markets, reflecting heightened anxiety about misinformation and AI-generated content in the U.S. _Anyone building trust or fact-checking tooling can follow misinformation research trends via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A million Dutch rely only on social media for news](https://daily.dev/posts/a-million-dutch-rely-only-on-social-media-for-news-yzxsvcj1u) · The Next Web · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Five stars, Zero trust](https://daily.dev/posts/five-stars-zero-trust-pafravbiw) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What happens to trust when attention becomes more valuable than the truth?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy"},"datePublished":"2026-09-02T22:46:03.310Z","dateModified":"2026-09-03T00:05:35.012Z","description":"An opinion piece by Pin-Social founder Booker Loud argues that social media's attention economy rewards outrage and sensationalism over truth, eroding public...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c2f935f87a88fb4ddc1f6819814f24f5?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c2f935f87a88fb4ddc1f6819814f24f5?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai,social-media","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What happens to trust when attention becomes more valuable than the truth?"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-happens-to-trust-when-attention-becomes-more-valuable-than-the-truth--ghzyw83oy#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What percentage of people globally trust news they see on social media according to the Reuters Institute 2026 Digital News Report?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Trust in news encountered through social media stands at just 22% globally, while trust in news from AI chatbots is even lower at 20%. 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