Study: Moroccans Trust Professional Journalists Over Social Media Influencers

According to the study, only 5.9% of Moroccans trust content creators, 2.0% trust influencers, and 40.7% trust their acquaintances and friends who post on social networks. The majority of respondents, or 87.9%, also stressed the need to put in place legislation to regulate the exercise of new professions related to content creation on social networks.

For 38.0% of respondents, social media platforms do not affect their mood or psychological state. While 39.9% say these platforms do not have a positive impact on them, 22.2% think the opposite. Nearly 96.8% of respondents believe that influencers have a very strong, strong or medium impact on adolescents, and about 94.9% believe that influencers and content creators, in search of easy gain, often lack objectivity and creativity.

Moreover, 64.4% of respondents are convinced that social media platforms have helped improve political awareness and citizen participation, especially among young people. On the other hand, 68.7% of respondents deplore the fact that these platforms do more harm than good to Moroccans. For 95.8% of respondents, TikTok is the most harmful platform for society and youth, followed by Snapchat (52.3%), Instagram (50.3%) and Facebook (39.7%).