Mis/Disinformation is a big problem. The pros (and future pros) are on it.
Misinformation is a big problem. We see it every day on social media. Sometimes the poster is completely unaware it’s not real. Sometimes they just didn’t have time to read the full article, or they meant well, or they were just in a trolling sort of mood that day.
Disinformation is even worse; defined as false information designed intentionally to mislead, it's frequently initiated by governmental agencies. Gone are the days when we can simply call this “Fake News”, the experts would prefer we don’t even dignify it calling it something it’s not - news.
How do I know this? As an alum of the University of Rhode Island, I was notified about an on-campus conference, titled “How to Be?Media Literate Citizens:?Explore The Role of Researchers, Journalists, and Students in the World of Heightened Disinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and Hate.” The one-day free event, which was open to the public, was hosted by URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media and consisted of panels, workshops, and ended with a Keynote session by award-winning journalist at Buzzfeed News Craig Silverman. Currently at ProPublica, Silverman is also a leading expert in online disinformation.
The day started with a fantastic panel on communications and journalism, consisting of members of The Boston Globe newspaper, The First Amendment Coalition, the Department of Health, and also the URI Senior editor of the campus newspaper, The Good Five Cent Cigar, who is a journalism and political science major. Some key takeaways from this panel was that journalists need to do better about making it clear what’s analysis/editorial versus news facts. And we can all do better about discussing news in person versus online, where some people are just there to “perform”, that is have a one-sided frame of mind.
After this was a showcase on misinformation research by URI faculty, staff, and students. Subjects included vaccine hesitancy and climate change. The faculty researchers investigated tactics that the climate change deniers used. I heard about many of them. They are all legal, and all infuriating, including methods such as using the Freedom of Information Act to clog up the time of the researchers, preventing them from doing actual research ("we need all emails with the word 'climate' in the email body.").
It led to a discussion about what URI is doing to protect its own researchers from the same tactics.
领英推荐
Before the keynote, we had a quick workshop on identifying propaganda photos, and if you want to test yourself, check out this great site, Mind Over Media to test out your propaganda identifying skills.
The day ended with a fantastic keynote by Craig Silverman titled “The Global Disinformation Trade: from the Pandemic to the War in Ukraine”. He discussed all those fake Facebook ads we see, how debunking videos are being weaponized, and the deceptive tactics Amazon reviewers use to build their own business and tear down their competitors.?
So, what can YOU do? Here’s what I learned that we can ALL do.?
It felt great to be back on a school campus again, and it was energizing to see so much youth and college students attending the conference. I left feeling a great deal happier than when I went in. As scary as the future seems, we’re not sitting back doing nothing. It’s being taken very seriously. Keep talking about it. Keep having dialogues. The kids will be alright.
#misinformation #disinformation #fakenews #propaganda #uri