Informational Flak

I did have another topic planned, but given what I'm already seeing out there this one seemed more timely.

informational flak {/?n.f??me?.??n.?l fl?k/} n. a mix of accurate information, misinformation, and disinformation, in such quantities and generated at such speed that it becomes impossible to determine accuracy

I'm going to be talking about the attempted assassination, or rather the fallout. This is not a political newsletter and I'm going to do my best to avoid political commentary (usually I'm happy to wear my politics on my sleeve, but they're not relevant this time).

Within hours false information and speculation was already flying around on social media. It's only amplified from there. This morning I woke up to see friends, usually intelligent friends, speculating about it being a false flag attack because they believed the Secret Service are infallible. Other claims have given the shooter affiliation to every group and ideology under the sun, including aliens and most religions.

Add to this the false accounts being created in the shooter's name variously for pure mischief, malice, or to try and demonstrate that 'the other side' were behind it.

One of the biggest problems of the modern world is informational overload, and social media exacerbates this (arguably, causes it). We, as humans, are very vulnerable to magical thinking, confirmation bias, overly-active pattern recognition, minimising cognitive dissonance, and much more which makes us perfect prey for conspiracy theories and radicalisation.

This vulnerability is ruthlessly and deliberately exploited both by individuals, and by nation states, whether to push an agenda or simply to cause chaos and division to opportunistically capitalise on later.

Add in AI tools which allow disinformation to be generated at a breakneck pace and the world gets very dangerous. Some of the solution for this goes back to the previous newsletter, but that's a strategic fix - when these disinformation storms come up we need tactical tools.

Informational Resilience

Critical thinking is more suited for a book than a newsletter, but there are some techniques that can be developed to improve resistance to information in these circumstances. Coincidentally, they're the same techniques and habits that work to protect well against fraud and advertising manipulation.

1. Emotional self-awareness

Disinformation attacks of all types often, in fact almost always, lean on emotional triggers. Anger, outrage, fear, urgency, excitement, greed, all prime us for manipulation as we are emotional creatures first and rational second. The key is to notice punches of emotion which don't seem justified - especially from any communication or postings. The habit to build is to take a few seconds to let that first rush dissipate before thinking about any action.

2. Cross-checking

While Wikipedia is not a perfect source by any means, it does have some standards and more importantly tends to be updated quickly. It's always worth double-checking any claims you see against a range of sources - both ones you usually agree with and those you don't. There are also fact-checking organisations such as FactCheck and Snopes which make efforts to make their claims verifiable.

3. Beware the monkey-sphere

We tend to trust information from our own social circles more than from external sources. This is fine to a point, but it can become toxic and self-reinforcing if the circle is poisoned by disinformation. Being willing to seek views and information from outside of your circle is important to understand the wider world.

Brace yourself

I don't have space in this newsletter to cover everything that's useful, but above all be aware that there is going to be a storm of mis- and disinformation going around for weeks, at the least. This is likely to be a bigger storm than we've ever seen before, and emotions will be running high.

If you'd like to know more about how social media disinformation can lead to harms such as domestic terrorism and radicalisation then several chapters in my book cover it. Grab a copy, I highly recommend it.