Young Scots say AI deepfakes are now ‘part of daily life’

TL;DR:

• A Young Scot survey of more than 2,600 people aged 11 to 25 finds over 80% have seen online misinformation.
• Nearly 70% worry about inaccurate information, and six in ten struggle to tell what is real from what is fake.
• Respondents repeatedly called for stronger regulation of AI and social media.

For a generation that has grown up online, AI-generated fakery has become background noise. Young Scot’s annual Truth About Youth survey found that more than 80% of young people in Scotland have encountered misinformation, with one respondent saying deepfakes are “now just a part of daily life and they’re getting better every day”.

A quiet erosion of trust

The numbers describe a steady wearing-down of confidence rather than a single crisis. Almost 70% of the 2,600-plus respondents said they worry about inaccurate information online, and six in ten admitted they struggle to know what is real. Young Scot trustee Finlay Anderson, 20, described a “growing sense that you have to question almost everything you see”, warning that constant uncertainty “can affect how much trust we place in information generally” and leave people “anxious or confused”. Chief executive John Loughton framed it as a “tidal wave of misinformation” that many young people feel they can no longer navigate.

Notably, the calls for action came from the respondents themselves, who repeatedly pressed for tougher regulation of AI and social-media platforms. That instinct chimes with wider UK debates about AI in public life, from the divided reaction to facial recognition in Peterborough to the authenticity row that saw Granta drop prize winners over AI. The throughline is trust — and how quickly synthetic content erodes it.

Looking forward

The findings add hard UK numbers to a concern often discussed in the abstract: that AI-generated content is reshaping how a whole generation relates to information. For policymakers weighing the Online Safety Act and AI rules, the survey is a reminder that demand for guardrails is coming from young people themselves — and that media-literacy education may matter as much as regulation in rebuilding trust.