Question

Factcheck This: As the Herald fakes News Highland Clearances, population there goes up 15%

Answer 1

This claim is at least somewhat misleading. According to Scotland's official 2022 census, Scotland's population grew around 2% from 2021-2022; and that this was its second-highest increase in recent memory. Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that the whole of Scotland's population did not increase by 15% as claimed in the post. In addition, correlation does not equal causation, and the event of "Highland Clearances" cannot be reasonably or definitively said to be the cause of increased migration to Scotland.

Comments

I thought you did a good job analyzing this claim but, I felt like you could have explained a little bit more. A lot of the overall reasoning came from your source but I think if you elaborated it would have provided more description.  ex: How was the source you found better?

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I agree with what you have to say and I would also say this claim is misleading. I think you have a good use of sources but I think if you dived deeper into these sources it would be easier to understand where your info came from. Good job!

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I agree with how you came to your conclusion and your overall stance on it. One thing that I would recommend is looking further into why and how the initial post claimed it to be 15%. A question that I could think of is are there any other contributing factors that explain why they stated 15% instead of 2%? A follow-up question to that would be where could these sources be to explain that exaggeration?

Answer 2

From the information that I found on Scotland's census website the population growth from 2001 - 2022 is around 15%. Most of this growth has also come from people migrating to the country. This is made clear by the incline of people over the age of 15 years old who live there. It is unclear whether the highland clearances are the reason for the steep incline in population or not. I can't find information that confirms this.

https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-rounded-population-estimates/

Comments

How would you rate the claim? True, false, misleading, N/A? Please select a rating for all fact-checks going forward.

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I think your information is clear but it is hard to understand where you stand on this fact. Do you think it is true, false or misleading/exaggerated? It was also hard to find certain information on this topic so I agree it was hard to confirm.

Answer 3

This fact is misleading, not only because it is a social media post from x, but it was posted by a profile in favor of Scotland. According to an article by BBC, "Council officers said a slight growth in the Highland population - a 1.4% increase to 235,400 people - masked "significant regional disparities".  Also according to Scotlands Census, Scotlands population has only grown  by 141,200 (2.7%) since the previous census in 2011. So, this post is misleading/ exaggerating because the population did not grow by 15%. These sites were helpful because they were coming from a trusted source. 

Comments

I like the way you explained the source in depth. The Scotland census is a fantastic source to go for this kind of information. The BBC is also very reliable. However, can you elaborate on how the Twitter profile favors Scotland? Could you maybe post some proof of this?