Greetings class,
This week we will be focusing on disinformation and fake news, as opposed to our first three weeks where they were just a sidebar to our primary content.
SPOT THE TROLL
To get in the proper mind frame to explore this problem, please take the Spot the Troll quiz. It will show you 8 profiles, including a brief selection of posts. You decide if each is an authentic account or a professional troll.
THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
Were you able to spot the trolls? As the election draws near, the intensity and volume of fake news is increasing, particularly on social media.
NBC: As wildfires were burning across Oregon and California this week, conspiracy theories about how the fires started were moving nearly as rapidly on Facebook. Posts falsely blaming members of antifa or Black Lives Matter spread across the platform nearly unchecked, causing calls about “antifa arsonists” to clog emergency phone lines. Local and national law enforcement had to spend precious time and resources rebutting the false claims, instead of rescuing residents and aiding in evacuations.
Facebook said last Saturday that it was banning fire-related conspiracy talk from the platform. But, according to research by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the misinformation continued to circulate for days afterward, eluding whatever mechanisms Facebook had put in place to end it.
— NBCNews
NYTimes tracking misinformation
The New York Times has a new feature, “Tracking Viral Misinformation Ahead of the 2020 Election.” Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online. A few examples:
The NYTimes also reported that older Americans were being targeted. MediaWise for Seniors, a project of the Poynter Institute, has offered free online courses to help older Americans detect and combat online misinformation.
FOCUS ON LATINOS
This week, a number of stories homed in on the election campaigns focusing on winning over Latinos.
WSJ: An NBC News/Marist poll showed Mr. Trump with a narrow edge over Mr. Biden among Latino voters in Florida, earning 50% of their support compared with 46% for Mr. Biden.
At a campaign event in Joseph R. Biden Jr. played a few bars of “Despacito” from his phone after being introduced by its singer, Luis Fonsi. The next day, President Trump shared a manipulated video of the moment with N.W.A.’s anti-police anthem “____ tha Police” dubbed in.
Trevor Noah covers the events on the Daily Show and warns about the importance of context. (Watch to 2:22)
Politico reported “a flood of disinformation and deceptive claims is damaging Joe Biden in the nation’s biggest swing state.”
POLITICO — George Soros directs a “deep state” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem. Wild disinformation like this is inundating Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida ahead of Election Day, clogging their WhatsApp chats, Facebook feeds and even radio airwaves at a saturation level that threatens to shape the outcome in the nation’s biggest and most closely contested swing state.
But on social media platforms, it’s a different story. Although many older adults use those platforms quite adeptly, Dr. Brashier said, “there seems to be something specific about scrolling through Facebook or Twitter” that makes them more vulnerable to misinformation
…
In South Florida, veteran Latino Democratic strategist Evelyn Pérez-Verdia noticed this summer that the WhatsApp groups dedicated to updates on the pandemic and news for the Colombian and Venezuelan communities became intermittently interspersed with conspiracy theories from videos of far-right commentators or news clips from new Spanish-language sites, like Noticias 24 and PanAm Post, and the YouTube-based Informativo G24 website.
“I’ve never seen this level of disinformation, conspiracy theories and lies,” Pérez-Verdia, who is of Colombian descent, said. “It looks as if it has to be coordinated.”
Today’s @elnuevoherald, the @MiamiHerald‘s Spanish-language paper, ran a 40-page insert full of fanatical right-wing extremist propaganda including a racist and anti-Semitic article comparing BLM to the Nazis #BecauseMiami h/t @ajhoward121 pic.twitter.com/CbvtSEn4h0
— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) September 11, 2020
This aligns with my experiences. I’m not seeing any fact-checking or “fake news” labeling for Spanish-language misinformation on Twitter or Facebook. Conspiracies are flourishing with virtually no response from credible Spanish-language media outlets. https://t.co/WOPsr72blL
— Yamil Velez (@YamilRVelez) September 14, 2020
— Politico
MIS/DISINFORMATION ECOSYSTEM
There is clearly a wide range of types of mis/disinformation: stories promoted as news, which are actually misleading, rumors, hoaxes, clickbait, conspiracy theories and/or propaganda. First Draft is an organization with a mission to protect communities from harmful misinformation.
The group has developed a lot of materials to help understand mis/disinformation ecosystem:
First Draft:
By now we’ve all agreed the term “fake news” is unhelpful, but without an alternative, we’re left awkwardly using air quotes whenever we utter the phrase. The reason we’re struggling with a replacement is because this is about more than news, it’s about the entire information ecosystem. And the term fake doesn’t begin to describe the complexity of the different types of misinformation (the inadvertent sharing of false information) and disinformation (the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false).”
FABRICATED CONTENT
Pope Francis gave his opinion of the phenomena in very blunt terms:
“Disinformation is probably the greatest damage that the media can do, as opinion is guided in one direction, neglecting the other part of the truth. I believe the media have to be very clear, very transparent, and not fall into – no offense intended – the sickness of coprophilia, that is, always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true.” — Belgian Catholic weekly Tertio
[noun: coprophilia 1) abnormal interest and pleasure in feces and defecation.]
While the below quote was attributed to Donald Trump, there is no evidence he said it.
In a November 17, 2016, press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama addressed fake news on Facebook.
FALSE CONTEXT
You are probably all familiar with the phrase “to take something out of context.” In the below example, prepared remarks made by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Arizona were misinterpreted online. A Washington Post contributor Daniel W. Drezner reported that Sessions had smeared immigrants, when in fact, the prepared remarks were aimed at “transnational gangs and international cartels.”
Sessions: “We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens. It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”
However, the report went viral and many were outraged, this despite the fact that when Sessions actually gave the speech, he said “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand.”
In the below post, a Trump supporter claims that “professionals” were bused in to protest the president in Austin and Chicago. On 10 November 2016, several disreputable web sites such as The Gateway Pundit published articles reporting that paid anti-Trump protesters were shipped into Austin to stage a “fake protest” against Donald Trump. The sole “evidence” for were three photographs posted to Twitter by user Eric Tucker:
In fact there was a Tableau (software) conference in Austin.
Snopes.com: Baseless rumors that George Soros, or some high-ranking member of the Democratic party, paid protesters to attend Trump events were circulated throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. As in this case, these rumors typically stem from morsels of truth but offer no actual evidence to support their underlying conspiracy theories.
MANIPULATED CONTENT
National Review’s October 1, 2012 cover features an image shot from behind Barack Obama as he delivers a speech at the Democratic National Convention in early September, 2012. The cheering crowd before him waves blue signs saying “ABORTION.”
In the original photo, the signs read, “FORWARD.” National Review, a conservative news magazine, changed each sign to read, “ABORTION.” It credited the photographer and Reuters news agency, but failed to indicate the photo was altered.
National Review publisher Jack Fowler responded to the issue, acknowledging that the image “in both the print and various digital editions, was altered by National Review. It is not the original photograph as provided by Reuters/Newscom, and therefore should not have been attributed to this organization, nor attributed to the photographer.” — Bronx Documentary Center exhibit “Altered Images“
In the below tweet, the author took a genuine post from fox8news and added “Dark white skin” at the top.
An online app allowed users to create their own presidential letters:
IMPOSTER CONTENT
In this example, the user created an account “Reuter” that was very similar to an actual news source “Reuters.”
Sometimes a disclaimer is too subtle for readers who rush to share things that are clearly fake.
SATIRE OR PARODY
One of the best known examples of this is the Onion. Satire is usually meant to entertain, not inform.
PROPAGANDA
Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Often this refers to mis/disinformation at a governmental level.
VERIFICATION
So how can we avoid getting bamboozled or outraged by fake news?
Snopes.com is one site that is dedicated to fact-checking such stories and a good place to go if you are wondering about the veracity of a story.
Politifact and Punditfact focus on factchecking these two groups.
FactCheck.org is another source from the Annerberg Public Policy Center.
ASSIGNMENT
Watch: Deepfakes: Is This Video Even Real? | NYT Opinion (3:38)
Claire Wardle responds to growing alarm around “deepfakes” — seemingly realistic videos generated by artificial intelligence.
Watch: Last Week Tonight: OAN (18:05)
Read: Atlantic: The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
Discussion Board: Visit one of the fact-checking sites below. Select one example and in a 250-word essay, explain what the story was, the techniques the organization used to investigate its veracity and the sources it uses.