Fifth Entry

 Are we living In the era of information or in the era of misinformation?

We can all agree that the Internet has made our lives a lot easier, being able to know what’s happening in the other side of the world with just a few clicks would sound like something really crazy for our ancestors, but that’s the world in which we are living right now, easily accessible entertainment, online learning, if you want to learn something there is probably a guide somewhere in the internet, its wonderful isn’t it?

But today we are not talking about the wonderfulness of the internet, we are tackling on a topic that we ignore a lot of the time (because we have experience when searching through the web) but it’s gaining a lot of attention recently, misinformation.

How come that we have every bit of information that we could think of in the palm of our hands, but that there are still people out there all around the world that believe and support movements like Anti-vaccination, people denying and calling the existence of COVID-19 a hoax from the government to control us (which funny enough sounds like something that came out of a movie), people that believe that the earth is flat, and so much more crazy theories and beliefs that can be proved wrong with just a quick google search.

According to The Dictionary.com (n d.), misinformation refers to “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead.”, it’s important to take into account the last bit of the definition, “regardless of intent”, meaning that one can be spreading misinformation without knowing, as it is the case with some people in the examples I gave earlier.

In today’s world where everyone and everything is connected to the internet misinformation spreads just like a virus, but who starts these rumors? The following video by BBC, explains which kinds of people are behind misinformation in the internet.

As it was explained in the video, a few people start these rumors and lies (Clickbait, Misleading headlines, Propaganda and even Satire) with malicious intents, some people may follow in with the joke and share it in their social medias, then people with less knowledge about the internet might see the news and believe that its serious information that needs to be shared, and it keeps escalating as time passes by until it reaches the attention of influential people and known figures whom decide to share it with their followers and up to that point the misinformation is already all over the internet, in our Facebook and Instagram feeds, news sites, and so on.

The sheer size of misinformation (speculations of its creation, cures, fake stories) that was shared around during the covid outbreak, prompted the World Health Organization to create a term for it “an infodemic”, which according to the World Health Organization (2020) refers to:

 an overabundance of information, both online and offline. It includes deliberate attempts to disseminate wrong information to undermine the public health response and advance alternative agendas of groups or individuals. Mis- and disinformation can be harmful to people’s physical and mental health; increase stigmatization; threaten precious health gains; and lead to poor observance of public health measures, thus reducing their effectiveness and endangering countries’ ability to stop the pandemic.

So knowing the full extent and damage that misinformation can cause in the world we live in, it’s our responsibility as the tech-savvy generation to stop the spread of this dangerous virus across the internet.

There are a few simple steps and question that you can take to stop the spread of misinformation:

1.     Starting by whatever you share, take a moment and read it carefully before you share it. Are the sources reliable?
Checking if the authors that are cited (if there are any) in the article are real, sometimes people will disguise misinformation by adding true facts to the story, so you have to be critical on whatever you are reading to separate the truth from the “false truth”.

 

2.      Does the story make sense?
This is pretty self-explanatory, if you found a “news” article talking about how 5G signals created the coronavirus and how are they controlling us, chances are that the article is fake.

 

3.       Is the article written correctly?
Most reliable news sites and stories won’t have grammatical errors or typos, since legitimate news publishers have editors and publishers that check the orthography of the text before publishing it.

 

4.        Check the page where it was published.

Misleading information can be disguised with legitimate sounding news-websites, if you read the name of a website and it sounds sketchy, made-up or too general, it’s probably a fake news site. And if you are not sure, you can search in google and forums to verify the veracity of the page.

 

5.       If you are sure that you found a misinformative and misleading article in your feed, be sure to report it, apps like Facebook and Instagram give users the possibility to report these kinds of posts so they can be taken down and stopped from spreading more false rumors.

  

6.     Most importantly, if someone from your friends, family, classmates or anyone closely related to you is spreading false and misleading information, break it up to them, tell them why what they are sharing is misleading and harmful to other people, they may have been sharing it without putting much thought into it or they may believe that the information regarded in the post is true.

It’s our responsibility as internet users to try and fight misinformation in whichever way we can, developing safe internet practices for ourselves and the people around us, take a minute and think before you share.

 

References.

 

The Dictionary.com. (n d.). The dictionary. “Misinformation” vs. “Disinformation”: Get Informed On The Difference. Retrieved from: https://www.dictionary.com/e/misinformation-vs-disinformation-get-informed-on-the-difference/

Sunniti Singh. (2020). Fake News Generator: Who starts viral misinformation? - BBC News [Video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAy6PI5UtSU  

World Health Organization. (2020). Managing the COVID-19 infodemic: Promoting healthy behaviours and mitigating the harm from misinformation and disinformation. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news/item/23-09-2020-managing-the-covid-19-infodemic-promoting-healthy-behaviours-and-mitigating-the-harm-from-misinformation-and-disinformation