From PA Post (https://papost.org/):
There are plenty of bad actors trying to manipulate you online
Illustration courtesy howtostartablogonline.net via Flickr
Social media was a wonderful evolution of the digital world when it emerged in the 2000s in the form of companies like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Connecting with old friends or family members, broadcasting your latest thoughts on Penn State football or sharing a new recipe … social media made that easy and fun to do.
But while it was winning us over by connecting us with long-lost members of our high school graduating classes, social media was also being used to share news and, just as importantly, opinions about news. Almost one-fifth of American adults (18%) “say they turn most to social media for political and election news,” according to the Pew Research Center. And what’s worse, Pew found, is that these same adults are less likely to know about topics in the news, especially involving topics like politics.
So right away, we know that people who get their news from social media are less informed than their peers who listen to news on the radio, watch it on TV or read reliable print or online publications.
That makes this audience a prime target for disinformation. If you spend much time on social media these days, you’re likely to see inflammatory posts about the news that are often false and misleading. And we know, thanks to Robert Meuller’s investigation, that foreign powers were using Facebook to try to disrupt the 2016 election.
In 2017, Claire Wardle of the organization First Draft wrote about the dangers posed by false information being shared on social media: “Previous attempts to influence public opinion relied on ‘one-to-many’ broadcast technologies but, social networks allow ‘atoms’ of propaganda to be directly targeted at users who are more likely to accept and share a particular message. Once they inadvertently share a misleading or fabricated article, image, video or meme, the next person who sees it in their social feed probably trusts the original poster, and goes on to share it themselves. These ‘atoms’ then rocket through the information ecosystem at high speed powered by trusted peer-to-peer networks.”
These efforts continue to target voters with false information. Case in point is the coronavirus epidemic. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity found that much of the information being shared on the virus back in May could be traced to “bots” — aka fake accounts created solely for the purpose of spreading false information.
“Some of it appears to be very orchestrated and coordinated,” CMU expert Kathleen Carley told WESA earlier this year. “A bunch of the ones that are associated with the conspiracy theories, such as this was a CIA weapon, appear to be coordinated.
First Draft on Thursday published a series of case studies showing how false information is being shared in battleground states ahead of the 2020 election. The researchers found “dozens of examples of information disorder playing out via private Facebook groups, text messaging and other platforms. In an echo of national trends, local influencers and elected officials — state representatives, sheriffs and political candidates — play a key role in amplifying and spreading misleading or harmful information about the pandemic and other issues.”
Another tactic, often pursued by corporate or political interests, is creating genuine-sounding “news” sites where literal fake, biased or misleading news is published. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism found that “[i]t is becoming an increasingly common campaign strategy for PACs and single-interest lobbyists to fund websites that borrow credibility from news design to help advance particular agendas. The proliferation of politically funded local news sites across the political spectrum raises questions about how these entities represent themselves to the public, and how they are categorized by search engines and social platforms.” (Here’s a searchable list of questionable sites, including dozens in Pennsylvania).
That means it’s our responsibility to check a crazy news story before you share it. When Uncle Eddy or Cousin Nancy forward you a Facebook post about dogs being registered to vote in Michigan, take a deep breath and then follow Ronald Reagan’s advice: “Trust, but verify” … with a heavy emphasis on verify.
Thursday’s Context included a list of fact-checking sites run by news organizations. To that list, we add the invaluable Snopes.com, which has been debunking rumors since practically the dawn of the World Wide Web.
Some additional news stories and useful tools:
- The Washington Post: Facebook disables Romanian network masquerading as pro-Trump Americans
- Iffy.news: An Index of Unreliable News Sites
- Verification Junkie: Directory of tools for verifying, fact checking and assessing the validity of user generated content online
- Google: Fact Check Explorer
- First Draft: The psychology of misinformation: How to prevent it
- Pittsburgh Magazine: CMU Researchers Share Advice for Spotting Fake COVID-19 News
- Kirby Ferguson: Trump, QAnon and The Return of Magic
- Charlie Warzel: Is QAnon the Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory of the 21st Century?
- Knight Foundation: Americans are losing faith in an objective media
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