Breaking down the Misinformation/Disinformation Age, How We Got Here, and How to be Better
By Emily Harrington
We are currently living in an age where information is at the source of our fingertips. Information is being thrown around the web, and social media outlets faster than it takes to refresh an internet browser. Thus making it extremely difficult to sort through sources (such as twitter feeds, facebook ads, news stories, and even outlets like snapchats blogs) and navigate factual information from unfactual.
We are beginning to hear words like, fake news, biases, infodemic, misinformation, disinformation, more and more. Across all generations, whether you pay attention or not there is an information crisis going on. Many people are exploring the media and are asking themselves is this true? Is this fake news? What even is fake news? Is this a factual source? Now some may ask, how did this happen?
The disinformation/misinformation age may have taken off sometime around the 2016 Election. The previous election was ultimately the starting point of the proliferation of fake news. Fake news travels and gains more traction on social media sometimes at faster rates than real news. You may be asking, why is there so much misinformation and disinformation on social networks? One reason is due to the fact that the internet is home to numerous amounts of scammers looking to make revenue off clicks. They do this by interpreting real news sites or personas, they post conspiracy theories and false information in hopes to get clicks which are then directed to their advertisements. Social media industries are taking steps to dismantle this problem and diminish these stories and advertisements. Facebook and Twitter being the biggest networks have both taken initiatives and are ultimately playing catch up to fight off this online enemy. Facebook has announced steps such as they are “Making it as difficult as possible for people posting false news to buy ads on our platform through strict enforcement of our policies. As well as, applying machine learning to assist our response teams in detecting fraud and enforcing our policies against inauthentic spam accounts” (1). Facebook has stated, “there is no real silver bullet to fighting misinformation, which is why we attack it from all angles: we take down coordinated networks and fake accounts and reduce the distribution of clickbait” (2). The Knight Foundation conducted research on the impact of misinformation and reverted 80% of fake news tweets sourcing back to only 24 accounts (3). Companies like Twitter and Facebook are aware of these issues and as I mentioned are doing their best to keep up, but the internet enemy just seems to be getting bigger and bigger.
I know personally, I catch myself sitting and asking myself things like “Is this actual real life?” “How did we get here?” We are living through such a crazy time it is so important to think about things we can do to be better for humanity. This past March with the COVID-19 pandemic striking in the United States and all across the World, it caused for this internet enemy to grow. Not only are we fighting this disease and pandemic but we are at war with ourselves. Racial Injustices coming to clear light, police brutality. It is almost as a breaking point has hit for everyone and we are constantly in a state of, is this real life? The amount of false information thrown around concerning these issues, and even information previously acknowledged as true then announced false is absolutely insane. Not to mention the foreign interferences with misinformation/disinformation in the United States. It has been proven that foreign enemies such as Russia have participated in the increased spread of misinformation online. This is a huge bullet surrounding the overall issue of the internet enemy but is not something we can control. The only thing we can do to be better, and fight all these viruses is to start within ourselves.
With the circumstances at hand, it is time to take all of this into our own hands and take a few extra steps to do better and educate ourselves further for the sake of humanity. At this point with all the things we have seen and heard, we can’t just go take down Russia’s internet trolls spreading false information, we can’t just call Donald Trump to ask him to stop downplaying COVID-19, but what you can do is inform yourself and others around you. We can call our long lost Facebook Uncle posting about the mask hoax and ask him to check his sources, look at the data, and listen to science. We must start taking small steps to dismantle the misinformation enemy and take back our democracy.
The art of scrolling online and obtaining information has taken a huge turn for the worst. When we are scrolling and seeing headlines, it is so important to go beyond the headline. A lot of the time, articles have nothing to do with headlines nowadays, and why is that? Click bait, you see something crazy… you click it. This leads to one way in helping dismantle the misinformation: read past headlines, and question these passages. We must slow down and look closer at the fine print, and start questioning things. If you read something and it sounds outlandish or questionable, put your investigator hat on and look further into it, google search, head to a fact checking site, whatever you do. Look into it, before sharing it. Some good questions to ask yourself include, Is this satire? Who is providing this information? Is there an outrage, are people actually upset? How are other outlets presenting this story? What's the larger narrative? Is any key information being left out?
Some other key ways to spot the misinformation is even as simple as, checking the date, the source, and the author. It can be as easy as checking the web address of the site you are on, people spreading misinformation will alter sites to look similar to trusted sources. ex: washingtonpost.com vs washingtonpo.com. Do a quick search on the author, are they credible? Are they even a real person? (crazy to ask, but valid). Some false posts or stories are not always completely false, but they distort the truth. Some of the tactics include taking real news stories and twisting them a little bit to change the message, claiming something that happened long ago is related to current times, or even reposting an old story to make it seem relevant.
One of the best ways for us to help diminish this internet enemy is to check our own personal biases. This can be difficult, but best for the long run. The first step would be just to acknowledge our biases. Consider how your own personal beliefs and upbringing have contributed to your judgement. Commit to uncovering your biases and working toward diminishing them. One way to learn about your biases is taking Harvard's Implicit Association test. Growing from these biases and good ways to practice this include focus on seeing people at an individual human level. Evaluate people based on personal characteristics rather than generalizations. Increase your circle - it is important to be surrounded by people who look, think, act, and view things differently than you. Practice listening and humility, listening with engagement and curiosity more than talking. Shift perspectives -put yourself in others shoes and reflect on situations and how you would feel. These tasks are sometimes hard to dive into and explore, it is easy to run the opposite way. Now more than ever though it is so important to confront these thoughts and issues head first.
Lastly, with the outrage of this internet enemy, more and more experts are creating truthful sources. Some great resources have been made to fight against the misinformation crisis. Some of these tools include, https://www.factcheck.org/, www.Snopes.com , www.politifact.com , www.propublica.org , https://www.factcheck.org/hot-topics/ . Sites like https://datasociety.net/ publish detailed, well-researched reports about online news. Work towards understanding the online news landscape, The Pew Research Center has spent years analyzing and surveying, this finding gives good insight on how Americans obtain information.
We have a long road ahead of us, but now more than ever is the time to start paying close attention, form personal and new opinions, and fight against the internet enemy/virus to stay informed and educated.
Footnotes:
(1) Working to Stop Misinformation and False News. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/formedia/blog/working-to-stop-misinformation-and-false-news
(2) Kopit, S. (2020, October 12). Disinformation Has Neighbors Fighting in Small-Town America. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/disinformation-on-facebook-has-neighbors-fighting-in-milford-michigan
(3) Disinformation, 'fake news' and influence Campaigns on Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://knightfoundation.org/features/misinfo/