In today’s digital world, information is more abundant and accessible than ever. While this flurry of information has benefitted many by allowing them to stay up to date with important issues, it has also further exacerbated the difficulties of identifying truth from fiction. Misinformation and disinformation can be found everywhere from social media to esteemed news sources. Whether an innocently mistaken fact or false claims with the purpose to deceive, it is as important as ever for people to be aware of the information they are consuming.
“Incorrect information can be spread very quickly through social media, and users of social media can be exposed to a lot of misinformation,” said Lori Robertson, managing editor of factcheck.org.
The first thing to establish is the difference between misinformation and the more ill-natured disinformation. Being able to differentiate between the two is fundamental to resisting incorrect information.
“Both words (misinformation and disinformation) are used to describe inaccurate information. “Misinformation” is something that’s simply wrong; it could be a mistake or a misunderstanding. “Disinformation” is wrong information that is purposefully used to deceive people,” said Robertson.
As addressed, the spread of misinformation can be seen as an innocent lack of understanding, but just because it comes from a place of ignorance does not make it any less dangerous. For example, say someone were to post something on social media that is unknowingly false and the incorrect information is shared by other people. Suddenly, through a stream of shares and complex algorithms, the post has been seen by thousands of social media users. Whether everyone who shared the post views it as truth or not, the metastasizing number of shares and views will keep that piece of misinformation circulating. This is why it is incredibly important for people to evaluate every piece of information they come across before sharing it. Fact checkers suggest analysing the source of the information.
Unlike misinformation, disinformation is a coordinated attempt to deceive. The strategic and controlling nature of disinformation makes it more malignant than other forms of false information. The intent of disinformation is to induce strong emotions and often incite tension. This makes it a completely unethical, but effective political tool to polarize people. AP European History and History of the Holocaust teacher, Mr. Triveri, sees large scale disinformation as a relatively new thing, at least in the last a hundred years.
“We’ve been dealing with this for a long time, but we are actually dealing with disinformation on a on a massive scale, on a global scale, for the first time in human history. So we can’t really look to history to draw a whole lot of lessons from it,” said Mr. Triveri.
Historically disinformation campaigns were primarily directed towards militaries, but in recent years the focus of these campaigns seems to have shifted to the general public. With the internet and social media platforms
“We can look back and we can say, Well, during the Second World War, there was the development of psychological warfare departments, and that they engaged in massive disinformation campaigns, they were directed it mostly toward militaries. And now what we have is we have state directed national governments disinformation campaigns directed at civilian populations, whether they are domestic or foreign, but in order to influence people’s political behaviors, and quite often to increase social tension.”
It is not just the lack of historical examples of the large scale disinformation we see today that adds to the difficulties of fighting disinformation; it is also the strong emotional connection people often make with these pieces of manipulative information. Social media and the internet is full of pseudo-intellectuals and politicians who offer people information which immediately satisfied their views. Because of the strong emotional response disinformation invokes, it is often difficult to convince the people that the information is false.
“People tend to put themselves in an echo chamber on social media. They’ll go searching for information that basically confirms how they already feel, rather than seeking out expert information or trusted sources, even if you disagree with the conclusions. The danger is that we’re going to our favorite sources, and our favorite sources can be influenced by things like foreign money and their own political leanings. All news sources have biases. All sources of information have aspects of bias. But the big difference now is that everyone is trying to promote themselves as either a free thinker or as unbiased, and that’s when you start to run into problems”, said Mr. Triveri.
The development of social media and the internet has opened the world to unlimited information. This has caused a decentralization of information. While this is incredibly helpful it has also allowed for disinformation to have more of a national and even global impact.
“Prior to the rise of social media, you went to trusted sources, and they were typically institutions that were well respected, the newspaper media, print media, especially local news. Typically you could trust in universities, professors, teachers, and libraries. You had these centralized places of expert information, and those institutions would go through a process of what’s called peer review, other experts in the field will read those ideas and subject them to academic criticism. Ever since the rise of social media, what we have instead is a decentralization of information. This is both great and also dangerous, because information that’s good can be found everywhere, but there is so much information that you have to sift through,” said Mr. Triveri.
Another cause for concern is the concentration of information to wealthy corporations and individuals. Which, granted does not in itself guarantee disinformation, but it is certainly something to consider when looking at sources of information.
“You’ve got a very small number of people with lots and lots of money that control basically all of the information that we receive. That’s wrong, because then information is concentrated in just a few hands, and so that even if it’s like a once reputable publication like the Washington Post, it’s owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and so it’s what he wants, rather than necessarily what their editorial board wants,” said Mr. Triveri.
The constant rush of information thrown at people everyday can be crushingly overwhelming, and combating false information is a foreboding task. The good thing is, the pressure to identify misinformation is not solely on the average social media or news consumer. Organizations like Fact.org strive to help people distinguish between fallacies and truths.
“It can be difficult for people to make sense of the many messages coming at them, whether those are from politicians or in their social media feeds. Our goal is to help people sort fact from fiction and to reduce confusion,” said Robertson.
It is also worth bringing up that social media and the internet are not completely unregulated. Fact checkers surveil social media and analyze flagged information spreading on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and threads.
“We monitor social media, and we get a lot of questions from readers about posts they are seeing on social media. Meta flags potential misinformation that is spreading through Facebook, Instagram and Threads. We find that posts spreading on one platform are spreading on others. we also fact-check claims made by politicians. Sometimes we find that similar claims are spreading on social media,” said Robertson.
The epidemic of false information is something that should be taken seriously. The point of this article is not to scare people or to entice them to distrust everything they read or see; it is simply to develop a healthy awareness of the information individuals are consuming.
