The role of creators has become more than someone who makes branded or original content. For millions, they are sources of information, recommendations and even expert opinions. Their appeal lies in proximity. They speak in familiar languages, share everyday experiences and interact directly with their audiences, making their communication feel less like advertising and more like advice from someone they know.
But that intimacy comes with a catch: trust, that can travel faster than verification. “The challenge today is not finding information; it is knowing what to believe,” says Dr Anirban Chaudhuri, Chief Strategy Officer, Hashtag Orange. With consumers surrounded by competing claims to credibility, their ability to verify information has not kept pace with the speed at which it reaches them. Creators, he says, can turn information into ‘socially validated belief’, but the same networks that validate information can amplify rumours just as quickly.
The recent incident at Lovely Professional University (LPU) illustrates the stakes. An unverified social media rumour about the alleged rape of a student triggered protests and violent clashes on campus on September 26–27, 2026. Videos showed vehicles on fire, crowds spilling onto a major highway, injured police officers and vandalised areas. The university denied the allegation, stating that no student or victim had come forward, no perpetrator had been identified and preliminary CCTV footage showed no evidence of an attack. Yet the narrative had already gathered momentum.
For Prince Khanna, CEO, Eleve Media, the vulnerability lies in the absence of formal editorial checks. Creators can react instantly, but when speculation gets prioritised over facts, personal credibility can collapse just as quickly. “Once audiences realise a creator prioritised quick views or outrage over truth, that credibility collapses instantly,” he says. The question, then, is not simply who is responsible when misinformation spreads. It is how responsibility is distributed.
Vibhor Gulati, Founder, Defodio Digital, puts the first responsibility on creators, who have a duty towards the audiences they have built. Platforms also need to control amplification, while agencies and brands must be more careful about the voices they associate with. According to him, the E20 controversy, where creators made claims about the impact of ethanol-blended fuel on vehicles, demonstrated how quickly a personal claim can become a much larger public narrative.
Raj Mishra, MD and CEO, Chtrbox, sees it as a three-layered responsibility: the creator owns the content, the platform owns the amplification, while agencies and brands own the choice of whom they put their money and reputation behind. That also means creator selection can no longer be reduced to followers, views and engagement rates. Brands need to examine content history, audience quality, judgement and behaviour under pressure. As Mishra suggests, contracts should include verification expectations, disclosure norms and crisis protocols, while creators should be matched to categories, they have genuine credibility in. Someone trusted for comedy or lifestyle is not automatically the right voice for finance, health or public safety.
Khanna similarly advocates deeper data-led due diligence, including audience demographics, engagement stability and historical content behaviour. Surface-level engagement driven by clickbait or controversy can carry significant hidden risk.
Yet the story is not simply about the dangers of creator influence. Used responsibly, that same influence can become a powerful public resource. Nischay Malhan, known to his Instagram followers as Triggered Insaan’s Assam flood fundraiser helped raise ₹70 lakh, while some creators during the Covid-19 second wave shared verified hospital, oxygen and plasma information. During floods in Himachal and Chennai, creators helped circulate helpline numbers, coordinate relief and debunk fake emergency posts.
Educators such as Ankur Warikoo and health communicator Dr Tanaya Narendra have also demonstrated how creators can make complex subjects accessible without abandoning accuracy. On the other hand, cases such as Fyre Festival, the rise of unregistered finfluencers that prompted tighter SEBI rules, and brand fallout around the 2025 comedy-show controversy show how quickly misplaced trust can become a reputational liability.
There is another layer to this trust equation. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 found that 48% of Indians surveyed show an unwillingness or hesitation to trust people who differ from them in values, sources or background, pointing towards a more proximity-based idea of trust. For brands, therefore, the creator question is not just ‘Who can reach my audience?’ but ‘Whose credibility am I willing to inherit?’ Because when influence becomes indistinguishable from information, credibility is no longer a creator metric. It is a brand risk.
