How technology aids in the spread of misinformation

With the rise of new technological settings like social media and digital writing, there is a rise of misinformation. Digital writing can occur in many forms: blogs, ads, social networks, emails, and more. When we read a post or something written on the internet most of the time we just look at its face value. Ignoring the need to dig deeper in its content. In an ever growing circulatory media world we need to ensure the reliability of our sources and what we post. When misinformation spreads, we spread biases over the truth and facts.

After reading the article, “How misinformation spreads on social media — And what to do about it” written by Chris Meserole we can identify ways to mitigate the spreading of misinformation on social media. The social media era has brought on new challenges for the digital user. They have to keep their eyes open to all the different information given to them and weed out what is factual. There is a constant need for immediacy. The user also has to educate themselves on the ever-changing technology. How are we supposed to not participate in the spread of misinformation?

What is misinformation?

Before discussing ways to prevent the spread of misinformation, we need to understand what it is first. Misinformation is false information that is aimed to deceive. A person usually facilitates misinformation when they favor a certain belief or bias based on the information they have. Anyone can participate in misinformation. Due to the bias contribution to misinformation there is a level of bias confirmation that promotes media going viral. People will share posts that favors what they believe in.

Going viral?

Misinformation can go viral because people will share and like posts that confirm what they already believe in. With new social media algorithms, users will see the circulation of most popular and relevant posts rather than immediate posts. People want to see what other people are talking about — what is the most popular. With people following a more participatory culture there is more of a risk to have increased exposure to misinformation.

We even see misinformation tweets done by the president. President Trump will post biased political tweets on his Twitter account that will go viral for two reasons: his popularity/fame and the altered content that fits with his and his followers points of view. His posts will mainly go viral due to his popularity but the biased efforts still prevail. How can we disrupt this spread of misinformation?

What to do?

There is no real solutions to stop the spread of misinformation. That is the catch-22 that lives in the social media era. We want media and content fast but there is no real way to fact check anything when anyone can spread media. And it is made worse with social media platforms using algorithms that favor popularity and relevance over accuracy. These algorithms use data to match your preferences with posts and preferences of others that are the most liked. That information could be inaccurate, biased, or incomplete.

Mesrole discusses the effects of misinformation using a journalist, Natasha Fatah’s experience writing about eyewitness accounts of the attack in Toronto in 2018. She wrote two competing eyewitness accounts. One identifying the attacker as an “angry Middle Eastern man” and another describing the attacker as white. The story using the Middle Eastern man spread quicker and wider despite it being wrong. The truth was the white man being the attacker but people’s preconceived notions about a white man vs. a Middle Eastern man prevailed.

Social media platforms should have the ability to monitor the false information from the real information. A potential solution posed by the article discusses that social media platforms should eliminate the posts that have inaccurate information once the real information is posted. They should restrict the ability to see the wrong information and rather promote the facts. They can do this by hiring an editing team and weeding through misinformation and keeping accurate posts. But, technology is not only at fault. As users and participators in circulatory media we need to better understand and identify biases. We need to see how our mistakes can be exploited. Once we post something it will stay there forever and if people like it then they can find it forever. We need to fact check ourselves before clicking enter on a post. Working with technology is the only way we can understand how to mitigate the risks it brings.

We have to be the change we want to see

If every post and piece of media fits with our own confirmation bias then we should begin to question the reliability of the posts we are viewing. If we want to continue to live in a contributable and customizable social media world than we need to understand how our mistakes could affect everyone around us. People tend to believe what they want or what others around them believe. So before posting on social media, ensure that what you are posting is in line with the beliefs of your page and use accurate and relevant information. We are allowed to have biases. We are allowed to post our own biases. But, they need to be accurate and in line with the truth not a fixed opinion that rather fits in the popular crowd beliefs.

As we grow with technology we need to make changes that fit with our needs and technologies capabilities.