The misinformation landscape

Misinformation is being circulated on an industrial scale , and it's creating huge problems for how society functions .

hold your hand through it all . On season three of what's Up With the Internet , canada's award-winning internet podcast , I'm your host , takara Small , and the podcast is brought to you by CIRA , the Canadian Internet Registration Authority , the nonprofit building a trusted internet for Canadians .

Over the next six weeks , we're going to discuss the threat of misinformation , how and why it spreads and how we can respond . It's good to question things . A dose of skepticism is healthy and , in an ideal world , it should help keep everyone honest .

As a culture , we often elevate people who speak truth to power and we admire those who speak out when everyone thinks they're crazy . But history proves them right . But how do we discern what's true and what's not when we're being bombarded with more information than ever before and so much of it is untrue and malicious ?

Diseases like measles are making a comeback because people misunderstand vaccines , while the rise of online fit influencers who provide health advice they aren't qualified to give is another growing problem . It's a worrying time . We have so much to get into . To start the conversation , we enlisted a Canadian expert , Sue Gardner .

Sue is a journalist and commentator who used to run CBC online , among many other things . Nowadays , she acts as a consultant and advises a number of organizations .

A lot is like I want to sell you something and so I'm lying to you about that thing , right , so I'm running an MLM , or I am running a crypto scam , or I'm selling fake supplements or some kind of pseudoscience , medical cure or whatever . All of those things are a super common form of disinformation .

That kind of gets a bit lost in the shuffle when we're thinking more about political stuff , right , so that's number one .

Number two is hoaxes and pranks and jokes and trolling , and so that is stuff like the Tide Pod Challenge right , was originally a joke on 4chan that said that teenagers were eating Tide Pods , and then the media picked it up and then , lo and behold , people did start to actually eat T pods , right , so things like that .

Another one is birds aren't real , which is the idea that all birds are government surveillance , um mechanisms , drones , um , and so that's , you know , bucket . Number two is hoaxes and pranks and jokes and trolling . Bucket number three is hate speech . So there are a lot of examples of that .

You know the Myanmar military using Facebook to spread false claims that the Rohingya Muslim people were terrorists . Right , the great replacement conspiracy theory , which is the theory that white people are being intentionally replaced by immigrants in Western countries .

And then you know there was a whole spade a number of years ago of false stories on Facebook claiming that Muslim immigrants were sexually assaulting women in Germany and in Sweden . And so all of that is misinformation , disinformation being promulgated to foment hate against a particular social group . Right .

Bucket number four conspiracy theories more generally , more broadly . Right , a lot of the COVID disinformation fell into this bucket , like the kind of thing saying that there are , like microchips in the vaccines . A lot of vaccine hesitancy came from this . Qanon very elaborate conspiracy theory . Pizzagate less elaborate still a conspiracy theory .

And then I , less elaborate , still a conspiracy theory . And then I don't know , do you remember the Wayfair trafficking conspiracy ? Do you remember that ?

Wayfair is the one where algorithmic pricing , responsive pricing , made that you know , I might buy a chest of drawers on Wayfair , the marketplace furniture place , and I might buy . It might cost $5,000 . And so the conspiracy theory was that , because dynamic pricing drove it up to 5k , I was going to get a trafficked child inside that chest of drawers .

And so the idea was that there was a massive international conspiracy to traffic children through the mechanism of this furniture selling marketplace website . So again , that leaves me feeling kind of wild and , you know , destabilized .

And then the last category , the fifth category , is what you might characterize as like relatively normal propaganda or political messaging , and probably the most famous , relatively recent example of that is , in the run-up to the Iraq war , the US government falsely claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a justification for going into that war .

Similarly , during Brexit , a lot of stuff , right . Also a lot of stuff right now Russia claiming that it is liberating Ukraine right . And another fairly recent example in Canada of this is I don't know if you remember the video that Chris Jeffery Lynn shared on Twitter of Aaron O'Toole when he was head of the Conservative Party , talking about health care .

Do you remember that ?

And so that last bucket , that last category , is all the stuff that kind of has always been with us , right ? You know , politicians are trying to put their messages out and they are trying to make you believe a particular thing and back and endorse them , and so you know and their course of action that they want to take . And so you know propaganda .

You know your propaganda is my political messaging , my political messaging is your propaganda , right ? And you know your propaganda is my political messaging , my political messaging is your propaganda , right ? But that's sort of relatively normal . People are trying to spin you to make you believe what they want you to believe . So those are the categories .

That's the array of stuff .

And it might also be worth noting the difference between disinfo and misinfo . Is intent , right ?

So misinformation is if I share the stuff with you and I don't know it's false , and disinfo is if I share the stuff with you and I don't know it's false , and disinfo is when I share the stuff with you , I know it's false and I'm doing it on purpose to mislead you okay , so now I'm curious as to who is disseminating all of this misinformation .

And there are , you know , well elaborated mechanisms , whole divisions of departments , of people doing stuff , for example , for Russia . So that is real and true . But a lot of this stuff actually comes from trolls and influencers and pranksters and people making jokes and people who are comedians and people who are satirists .

Right , a lot of it , especially the stuff that doesn't originate as disinfo but rather originates as jokes and pranks and hoaxes right , it's going to come from people who just are trying to be funny or they're trying to make a splash , they're trying to make a name for themselves .

When it comes to who promulgates , like , who shares the stuff , it gets shared by probably a mix of three types of people . Celebrities are a really common sort of vector for it , right , celebrities drive a mix of three types of people .

Celebrities are a really common sort of vector for it , right , celebrities drive a lot of misinformation , disinformation , and when I say celebrities , I'm including both sort of conventional , like movie stars , right .

And then also like more modern kind of TikTok , influencers and people like that , a lot of it is shared by ordinary people , people like you and me , knowingly or unknowingly sharing it . And then the last vector , and I think kind of the saddest vector , is the news media itself . Right , because the news media will .

Frequently they will share it , not understanding that it's false right , and sometimes they will share it wanting to debunk it . But the actual effect of their sharing it is to spread it further , ordinarily , right . So those are the main ways that it gets pushed out . Spread it further , ordinarily right . So those are the main ways that it gets pushed out .

? If , as you say , some of this is being pushed out as jokes or a hoax and it's unintentionally being spread far and wide , it must have some downstream consequences consequences .

You'll probably remember that back in I don't know , like 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , thereabouts , when we first started talking a lot about disinfo , experts really liked to talk about how it had always been with us . Right , you know , it goes back to the Roman era .

Like , like always throughout history , we have , you know , tried to propagandize and brainwash each other , and that is 100% true . But there has been a real and massive sea change in the volume of this stuff , because our information ecosystem used to be relatively sanitized .

Right , we had gatekeepers who determined what was or was not true , and they acted as a kind of filtration system that kept the information ecosystem kind of clean . Right , with the advent of the internet , that filtration system has been entirely swept away .

It's not that those people don't still exist in those functions they do , right , there are still working journalists , there are still editorial boards and fact checkers and ombuds people , but what has changed is that they're no longer the only gateway , right , you can now completely sidestep them . They are not an intermediary .

The new intermediaries are the social media platforms , and they and I always feel like this sounds very mean when I say it out loud , but it is just factually true the social media companies do not have the same commitment to truth and accuracy that journalism does have , right , they just it's just not a value for them , right , it's not in their purview , it's

not what they do . And so what that means is today you have anybody can make stuff , right , we all have a printing press , we all have a megaphone . There is no filtration system , and that means that the whole information ecosystem system is awash in disinfo and misinfo . And so that has two , I think , effects , right .

One is on a political level it further diminishes already low trust in elections and institutions , the media etc . And then , I think , on a personal level , which is arguably at least as important , right . I think what it means is that people start to have increasing difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction .

Clearly , right , like we have to spend more time sort of considering is this real , is this true ? I think that that is . It's destabilizing for us and it's kind of unsettling for us .

It's destabilizing for us and it's kind of unsettling for us and I think it's exhausting because it requires us to maintain a sort of constant stance of like skepticism and vigilance . That is kind of tiring right , and I think is probably also like we don't know yet what's going to happen , how all of this will play out .

But it seems to me it's probably not psychologically super healthy for us to have to navigate the information environment , which is basically the environment , right , With this constant awareness that people are trying to mess with you , right ? Like that can't be good for us to feel sort of unsafe in that way all the time , right .

So I think those are some of the effects that we're seeing that way all the time right .

They acknowledge it exists and they often , you know , explain to me that they feel it's the reason , the primary reason , as to why there's a growing divide within the country . It's a reason why institutions , sometimes even doctors and scientists , aren't believed .

Do you think that's a fair assessment or is there too much blame being placed on this one specific area ?

So trust in politicians is down , in the courts , in the news media , in science , in corporate leaders , that is all down . That seems like , and we often talk about it as though it's a decline of trust in institutions , and I think that's true .

But I am beginning to believe , and I think we are beginning to understand , that more so than a decline of trust in institutions , what it really is is a decline of trust in elites , right In things that are perceived as separate from the people .

People have begun , had begun , have now lost their faith in the idea that elites are on their side , that the system is working to their advantage , that they are being prioritized and their politicians , for example , want to help them . Right .

What disinformation does is it capitalizes on that diminishing trust and it amplifies it , it exacerbates , it , makes it worse , right . So you get claims like the election was rigged , that politician is lying , the journalist is biased , the experts are lying about face masks and COVID right ?

I think those claims would not work if the trust was strong in the first place , right ? And the way disinformation functions , like the way that it gets promulgated through society . It's opportunistic , right . In the same way that Donald Trump is like he will say something and if it works , he will say it more . It's like that , right .

Like if it lands , if it resonates , it will then get further perpetuated , it will go viral , right ?

What that means is that if people firmly believed that the news media was on their side , for example , and that the news media was working to advance their interests and help them , then they would not be receptive to claims like the news media is in the pocket of Justin Trudeau or whatever . The claims are right .

And so I feel like it becomes a vicious circle . So there's this lack of trust , which is not unjustified , right . Like it has reasons . Disinformation exploits that lack of trust and trust further diminishes , and so it becomes this sort of bad spiral where things just get worse and worse , this downward spiral .

firmly on the side of the people . So I think , for example , you know , journalism has become to , you know , stenographers , to power . I think journalism would do itself a favor if it were aligned more with the people , if it became more of a blue collar , kind of on the side of the ordinary person thing that it used to be before .

It became more professionalized , more of an elite profession , more of a sort of you know , city thing .

Right , I feel like I used to believe that if you reconstituted yourself in that kind of a sort of city thing , right , I feel like I used to believe that if you reconstituted yourself in that kind of a way , it would work right and the people would trust you again . But I'm not sure I believe that anymore .

It's been such a long time , there's been such a diminishment , right , and I find myself thinking all the time about how it is so much easier to break things than to build them , and so it takes a long time to earn trust and then you can squander it .

It can get destroyed in a nanosecond , and so I don't know , right , like I do think the only hope there is is to try to reorient yourself towards the people . So you're inoculating yourself against those criticisms , right , that you are out of touch and unrepresentative and only serving power , right , but I'm not sure anymore that that's sufficient .

Like it's gone so far that it may be too late to sort of to sort of turn back the clock on the diminished trust that we are now .

Right , you know , in the wake of 2016 , I guess you know how many fact-checking organizations sprung up , like dozens , hundreds , maybe hundreds , right , and existing journalistic institutions spun up their own fact-checking things . And what is the man's name who was at the Star and now he's at CNN , who did the fabulous ?

Daniel Dale , daniel Dale , exactly , yeah , and he did those fabulous , like never ending you know documentation of all of Trump's lies , right , there has been so much of that stuff and that stuff is just completely useless , like I love it , of course , right , but it is useless Because you know people who care , like it's like there's two groups of people and we

don't see the other group , right , and of course we . It's a continuum and we travel back and forth ourselves , right , different moments , we're in different camps , but generally speaking

, there's people who care about facts , right , people who live in the so-called reality community and we are very serious and very earnest about all this stuff . Obviously , every journalist is in this camp , right ?

These are people who will read the 10,000-word essay , like hand-wringing , about the dangers of deep fakes , and we will read the fact-checking , checking sites and we will read Daniel Dale and we are , like , very concerned .

But then there's the people who are receptive to this stuff and for them it is totally different and you know , like I , I , I would , I kind of want to say , but I also hesitate , I kind of want to say they see this as a form of entertainment . The reason I hesitate is because we also see it as a form of entertainment .

If we're being honest with ourselves , right , like we are reading the atlantic , we are reading the new york times . It flatters our sense of ourselves as extremely serious people engaged in serious thinking about serious issues .

Right , but the people who are receptive to disinfo , they are also enjoying themselves , and what I have seen , when you look at the stuff that they're consuming , it's funny , right , it's meant to be funny , it's meant to be satire , it's meant to be political satire , like remember I can't remember who said this about Donald Trump .

Way back , somebody said you know , the question is whether to take him literally or seriously , or don't take him literally , but do take him seriously . Who said that ? Do ?

I think flies in the face of fact-checking and the level of trust that listeners and readers have in the journalist who's conveying this information .

You know , most people don't believe that children are being sold in wardrobes and that birds are drones and blah , blah , blah , but they believe in the spirit of it . The spirit of it is true to them and I think that that just means it's like they're playing a different game . So our fact-checking are extremely serious . Point-by-point rebuttals .

You know , like number one , you can't keep up , right , it's much easier to say a bunch of nonsense than to , you know , point by point , rebut a bunch of nonsense .

But also , too , it just seems kind of humorless and pointless , right , because the stuff isn't intended , I don't think , to be literally true , it's intended to be metaphorically true , it's true on a vibes level , right ? This is how I feel about things , right , and I find it funny , you know , and I feel like so .

So , so , you know , you asked about the Canadian media response to this stuff and I , I I can't see if you are a person who does not trust the Canadian news media , news media in general . I cannot see how the news media can be part of the solution when you see it as part of the problem .

Like you don't care what they think , right , you could care less what they are saying , by definition , you are not listening to them . You are listening to something else . You know it's a result of alienation . They're just alienated , right ? Like all the surveys , all the studies show the exact same thing , right ?

They show that people believe the system is broken . It does not have their back . Elites are lying to them . It's all a con , it's all a trick , right , it's all a trap .

That's how they feel and they have real reasons for feeling that way , right , and you know , I mean , I think we're living in a time where , like the old array , right was the old spectrum , the old continuum was left to right , and I feel like that's not it at all anymore .

And I feel like the longer we spend trying to think that that's still the division , the less smart we can , be right , like , I feel like the division is elite . And then people , that's the division , right . And so if you let yourself get put in the category of elite , the people . That's the division , right .

And so if you let yourself get put in the category of elite , the people will hate you like . I think it's that simple , right , because that's how they feel about everything . They just feel .

. Next week we're going to look at how misinformation and disinformation spreads and what are the forces behind it . So things that really get at our base emotions of anger , anxiety , fear those are the kinds of information that we are most likely to spread , and so different groups know this and they will use that as a way to push this information .

Keep an eye out for that next week and if you're enjoying the podcast , then please leave us a review , as it really helps the show . You can reach me @Takara Small , on Blue Sky Social and Instagram , or you can email us at podcast@ cira . ca . Thanks for listening and we will see you again next week , guys .