For years, radio host Alex Jones has denounced the parents of the young men killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newton, Connecticut, as “crisis actors. “On August 5, 2022, he ordered through a jury to pay more than $49 million in damages. two families for defamation.
These are through direct efforts to flood the world’s media with misleading data or malicious content. Governments, organizations, and Americans spread false data for profit or to gain a strategic advantage.
But why so much misinformation?
Three profound reasons
Three schools of ideas have emerged to answer this question. The first suggests that the lack of data is so widespread because distrust in classical resources of authority, including the media, continues to grow. , are more likely to settle for data than demanding situations with classical beliefs.
Second, social media platforms’ emphasis on engagement leads them to publicize shocking claims that provoke outrage, whether the claims are true or not. it’s newer and more surprising.
Finally, the role of hostile and planned disinformation tactics must be overlooked. Facebook estimates that in the 2016 U. S. election, malicious content from the Russian Internet Research Agency aimed at creating a department among the American public reached 126 million other people in the U. S. In the U. S. and around the world.
The nuances of misinformation
This data crisis is regularly framed in terms of the spread of false data deliberately (disdata) or accidentally (disdata). However, this technique overlooks the vital bureaucracy of propaganda, adding techniques perfected during the Cold War.
Most russian influence efforts on Twitter involved communicating “manifestly false” content. Instead, the subtle and subversive examples of propaganda were not unusual and relentless, adding calls for the removal of U. S. officials, buying divisive classified ads, and coordinating genuine protests.
Unfortunately, even accidental dissemination of incorrect information can have tragic consequences. In 2020, following Donald Trump’s false claims that hydroxychloroquine showed “very encouraging results” compared to COVID-19 that temporarily spread on social media, several other people in Nigeria died from overdoses.
Responses to propaganda and disinformation
So how have entities dealt with incorrect information and misinformation?
Jones’ case and jury verdict are an example of how corporations can counter misinformation. Being brought to justice and forced by a jury of your peers to pay $49 million in damages would require most people to find out what they say before they say it.
Governments and businesses have also taken vital steps to mitigate disinformation. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU stopped broadcasting Russia Today, the famous State-controlled Russian TV network, and can no longer be seen in Europe or Africa.
The allocation of EUvsDisinfo countered Russian propaganda and addressed “the ongoing disinformation campaigns of the Russian Federation affecting the European Union, its member states and the countries of the shared neighborhood” since 2015. lists dubious accusations similar to the invasion and verifies their veracity.
Wikipedia as anti-propaganda?
Ordinary citizens also have various tactics to counter disinformation. Information literacy is perceived as an individual responsibility, however, Swedish academics Jutta Haider and Olof Sundin point out that “a shared sense of fact demands social trust, especially institutional trust, at least as an expected ideal.
How can we recreate a common sense of truth?Wikipedia, the freely available online encyclopedia where wisdom is produced collectively, is a smart position to start.
Wikipedia has community-enforced policies on neutrality and verifiability. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, but countless administrators, users, and automatic compositing “bots” make sure the edits are as correct as possible. Changes and disputes about the content of articles are archived on the site and are visible to all: the editorial procedure is transparent. With the imaginable exception of hard-to-understand topics involving very few editors, misinformation is temporarily eliminated.
Education is key
As consumers of information, we can take some important steps for ourselves from misinformation, adding the search and reading of a wide variety of resources and not sharing questionable content. Schools are doing their part to spread this message.
Notable projects in Australia come with Camberwell Grammar School in Canterbury, Victoria, where teachers have leveraged resources produced through ABC Education to teach their pupils how to identify credible information resources. The precept is being tested this year in 3 number one ACT and secondary schools. The program asks participants to open another tab and check Wikipedia if they find unknown or dubious claims. If the claim is unverifiable, continue.
This data education will have to be complemented through awareness of democratic norms and values. And it will also incorporate a greater understanding of the importance of privacy: the more percentage we have about ourselves, the more likely we are to be targeted for disinformation campaigns.
While disdata is likely to continue and even thrive in some corners, our most productive lines of defense make sure we read data from trusted sources; use fact-checking services; and they are no easier than what we read and share.
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