Misinformation

How do we adapt to avoid being manipulated and spreading false information to the people we care about? Past methods of spotting untruthful news, like checking articles for typos and phony web addresses that resemble those of trusted publications, are now less relevant. We have to employ more sophisticated methods of consuming information, like doing our own fact-checking and choosing reliable news sources. It sounds simple enough, but it is hard to slow down and stay vigilant and skeptical at all times. Need a refresher on some ideas for staying optimistic but proactive? An article entitled How to Deal with a Crisis of Misinformation may just be what you are looking for.

The experience of sinking into emotional quicksand while bingeing on doom-and-gloom news is so common that there’s now Internet lingo for it: “doomscrolling.” While this article entitled You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It is from this past summer, it probably is a good reference as we stare down all the misinformation proliferating on the Internet as we are about to have a change in political leadership, amidst the continuation of the Covid pandemic.

It may have taken the invasion of the US Capital Building for regulators to recognize the danger of misinformation, and even cyberbullying, though critics have been piling up evidence for years. Democrats, who will now control both houses of Congress, are promising to use their powerful new perches to proffer the sort of tough new laws and other punishments that tech giants have successfully fended off for years. This political shift could result in major repercussions for the industry, opening the door for a wide array of policy changes that could hold Facebook, Google and Twitter newly liable for their missteps.

If you’re seeing double, don’t adjust your prescription. Queen Elizabeth II’s annual Christmas message to the United Kingdom was followed by alternative remarks from a digitally created ‘deepfake’ monarch meant to warn about the dangers of misinformation. After the real queen delivered remarks on the BBC and ITV, the deepfake aired on Channel 4 in a five-minute segment hitting on hot-button royal family issues. The lookalike queen also tried her hand at a TikTok dance challenge. Despite the silliness, the stunt was meant as a warning about the dangers of fake news, particularly as delivered through digitally manipulated media.

“If there is a theme to my message today, it is trust,” said the fake queen in the clip. “Trust in what is genuine and what is not.” Earlier this year, Facebook banned deepfake videos to stem the spread of misinformation ahead of the US presidential election, while Microsoft launched a program designed to give a “confidence score” on whether a video has been digitally manipulated.

When trying to explain misinformation to kids, it is important to understand how misinformation gets started and persists. The misinformation effect is the tendency for post-event information to be added to the memory of the original event. Researchers have shown that the introduction of even relatively subtle information following an event can have a dramatic effect on how people remember. A good introductory article on the subject is The Misinformation Effect and the Psychology Behind Fake News.

If you want to discuss with your kids how misinformation is creeping into our lives, you might want to use the upcoming Georgia runoff elections as a case study of how things are getting out of hand on social media. The full force of 2020’s most effective fake news tactics is hitting the state: fears of widespread voter fraud, allegations of violence, and claims about candidates’ socialism. But despite its much-touted efforts to add warning or fact-checking labels to election disinformation, Facebook is failing to do exactly that on more than half of the questionable posts related to the Georgia races, according to a new analysis by Avaaz, a nonprofit that tracks online disinformation. The group found that Facebook failed to add fact-checking labels to at least 60% of a cross-section of Georgia-related election misinformation that reached thousands of voters. An analysis of more than 200 posts promoting a dozen false claims about the Georgia elections in both English and Spanish showed how the posts followed a now well-worn playbook of amplifying disinformation that has proven effective in recent months. This includes falsehoods about widespread voter fraud, fake rumors about acts of violence targeting African-American voters, and allegations that Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock had “celebrated” Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Interested in learning how you and your kids can navigate today’s challenging information highway? Use the interactive lessons on Checkology, which includes free materials available for anyone to use on the News Literacy Project site (a more extensive set of lessons is available for a fee to classrooms as well). You will learn how to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources, and apply critical thinking skills to separate fact-based content from falsehoods. Checkology will give you the habits of mind and tools to evaluate and interpret information. And just for fun while on that site, take the news literacy quiz about fighting falsehoods on social media. What do you know about the various social media platforms’ misinformation policies?

Students are prepared to get behind the wheel and navigate busy roads, but not to investigate a complicated information superhighway, writes Liz Ramos, who teaches history and US government at a California high school. In a recent commentary, Ramos writes that the US election has highlighted the importance of teaching news literacy in schools so students learn to think critically and be informed, engaged citizens.  She cites Finland as an example of a country that is teaching information literacy in grade school, seamlessly integrating it across subjects. In math class, students learn how statistics can be used to distort. In art class, they see how the meaning of an image can be manipulated. In history, they examine propaganda, and in Finnish language classes, students learn how words can be used to confuse, mislead and deceive.

Americans are divided on both whether offensive content online is taken seriously enough, and on which is more important online: free speech or feeling safe. Republicans and Democrats have grown further apart when it comes to these issues since 2017. Overall, 55% of Americans say many people take offensive content they see online too seriously, while a smaller share (42%) say offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted in early September 2020. In addition, about half of Americans (53%) say it’s more important for people to be able to feel welcome and safe online, compared with 45% who believe it’s more important for people to be able to speak their minds freely online, according to an earlier Center survey fielded in July 2020.

The election may be over, but the past four years has shown not just how fast the news moves, but how inaccurately. Finding vetted sources for our kids is more important now than ever. Four current affairs podcasts for kids were recently reviewed and recommended for kids in an article in The New York Times. The list includes daily, weekly and bi-weekly shows. Interested in building your kids critical thinking skills? Try The Big Fib, a show for 7 to12 year olds. The show has a fact-or fiction theme, such as  “Toilets,” in which a 9-year-old named Theo has to figure out whether a civil engineer named Gloria really created a solar-powered toilet, or if the other grown-up in the hot seat, Joe, is really an expert plumber. It’s a goofy premise that nevertheless shows children how to be good skeptics and equips them with the critical-thinking tools they need to interpret the world around them.