In today’s digital landscape, misinformation spreads rapidly across social media and messaging platforms, influencing public opinion and shaping conversations. Understanding how and why people encounter, verify, and share false information is critical to addressing these challenges. To explore these human factors in information disorder, LIRNEasia conducted a nationally representative survey in Sri Lanka. The study spanned 150 Grama Niladhari divisions, the country’s smallest administrative units. A total of 2,610 respondents were surveyed, including 1,797 Sinhala news consumers and 813 Tamil news consumers, all aged over 18 and able to consume and comprehend news in their respective languages. 
In today’s digital landscape, misinformation spreads rapidly across social media and messaging platforms, influencing public opinion and shaping conversations. Understanding how and why people encounter, verify, and share false information is critical to addressing these challenges. To explore these human factors in information disorder, LIRNEasia conducted a nationally representative survey in Sri Lanka. The study spanned 150 Grama Niladhari divisions, the country’s smallest administrative units. A total of 2,610 respondents were surveyed, including 1,797 Sinhala news consumers and 813 Tamil news consumers, all aged over 18 and able to consume and comprehend news in their respective languages. 
A recent experimental study conducted by LIRNEasia in Sri Lanka explored people’s ability to accurately assess the truthfulness of information — and found that this ability varies significantly depending on the topic. The study focused on three types of information: climate, economic, and ethno-religious issues. Participants were asked to classify 12 climate-related cue cards as true, mostly true, mostly false, or false. This classification process was carried out in three phases over the course of the study. In the first phase (baseline evaluation), participants arrived at the test center and were asked to classify 40 cue cards, which included the climate-related cards.