Blog #8- Mis/Dis/Mal-Information

    Did you hear that Disney was lowering the drinking age to 18? How exciting for our Disney “adults” right? Well according to Mouse Trap News and a viral tiktok, Disney is currently petitioning the Florida state government to allow them to do this!  Now if you are a real fact check you know this isn’t true, just some bad information that has been spread around by some eager-to-believe social media followers and a professional-looking satirical blog. Its titles like this grab readers' and viewers' attention, pulling them into the media source.  This goes to show how quickly misinformation can spread. The true definition of misinformation is information that is false, but the person who is disseminating it believes that it is true… so there is no malicious intent just a lack of education. Whereas Disinformation is information that is false, the person sharing knows it’s false, and has a malicious intent to harm. On the other hand, Mal-information is when information is spread that comes from the truth but is stretched or exaggerated, and the person sharing knows this. 

                                                                                                    The increased use of AI technology

has enabled so much mis, dis, and mal information to be spread, because of how real it seems with deep fakes and manipulated media sources. This spreading of false or exaggerated information leads to, discrimination, stigmas, and false concepts or theories.  

    Misinformation is not an easy task to prevent, but how it happens is a little easier to narrow down. In a report done by UNESCO, they identify three causes enabling the spread of misinformation, first the Collapsing traditional business models. What this means is due to a decrease in advertiser budgets, there is less quality control, and an increased push for “click bate” journalism leads to more cases of information. Next is the digital transformation of newsrooms and storytelling. We are advancing in our technology each day, and so our news has shifted to this digital platform, which is much easier to spread, with even less control. Lastly the creation of new news ecosystems. These are the user-generated news systems and content streams. Most platforms will show you what you find interesting furthering the drive for clickbait leads, and more so an echo chamber of potentially false information. The American Psychological Association connects our willingness to believe in fake news to our cognitive processes being more willing to accept information that conforms to our worldview biases.   

    Even if you didn’t believe the influence this has had in our society, the debates on COVID-19 sure did bring to light the need for stronger fact-checking processes. The National Library of Medicine referenced the period of time when people believed getting the vaccine would affect fertility in women, and potentially alter the genetic makeup of individuals. The information that usurped this rumor led to a decrease in people getting vaccines. Whereas information spread did have other influences on people's behavior patterns of social distancing, handwashing, and mask-wearing. 

    Now how can we as a society work to help prevent the spread of false information with malicious intent or not? We can take more time to stop and think, and fact-check sources. There are so many resources out there online that can educate individuals on how to tell whether a source is true or not, we just have to take the next step.