Disinformation and misinformation work for a very simple reason. People who did not study history, and do not follow current affairs do not have the background information to spot what is true from what is untrue. They are unable to use history’s lessons to see the warning signs and act accordingly.
Algorithms and Social Media
In Mindf * cuk by Chris Wylie we read about how big data and algorithms were used to identify and exploit people’s gullibility to get them to vote for Brexit in England, and the Republican candidate in the US. Algorithms, for years have controlled what we see, by whom, and how often. Facebook has been caught more than once playing with algorithms to intentionally make people miserable as well as to manipulate people in to seeing things one way, rather than the other.
More a mondane example, before Facebook bought Instagram we saw images by friends, colleagues and family. When Facebook took over control of the timelines they started to show ads more and more frequntly. Eventually every fourth post was by an influencer or an ad. The timeline that had been about friends, families and more became a glossy magazine, where our wasted time was making money for people who saw no value in us. That’s why I left Instagram.
I left Facebook because I was flammed.
Twitter went from being a chronological timeline where retweets and conversations made posts prominent to a network where the timeline is controlled by algorithms. Normal people become invisible, and flame wars, trolling, and indoctrination spread with ease. YouTube is exposed to this issue too.
AI and Social Media
On Monday CNN explored: With the rise of AI, social media platforms could face perfect storm of misinformation in 2024 where it spoke about the generation of fake images, fake videos and disinformation articles to control what people “knew”, “thought” and more. That’s where Mainstream media should be working to provide people with reliable information that disproves and neutralises the disinformation generated by AI.
Education and Context
One of the deepest issues that England, the US and other countries face, is that people have not studied history in enough depth and have not followed current affairs seriously enough either. They believe what they read at face value and they have no historical and contemporary context from which to determine if information is factual, or disinformation.
In the past the role of Public Broadcast Services and Mainstream media was to inform, educate and entertain the masses, to provide them with context, for the information that they are being given. It was meant to be neutral and balanced. Brexit wasn’t covered in a neutral and balanced way. Almost all air time was in favour of Brexit, so people never heard about the dangers of Brexit.
As I said at the time, if the English want to know whether Brexit will work, just look at the Swiss Far Right and their failed attempts to split from the European Union. More than once they voted to break ties, and each time they had to come back, for science and for trade.
Knowledge and Trust
For a while Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were driven by our social network. We read the posts by friends, and saw the posts of friends of friends. The community was tight knit and we were seeing content by people we had chosen, or that had been chosen by friends. We were shown content by people whose biases and views we understood. Algorithm and AI driven social media destroy that network of trust and show us content by strangers, as well as conversations by strangers. The tight knit community that we had grown to know, and trust, was replaced by a faceless mass of strangers. I trusted my network.
The Fediverse and Mainstream Media
Although mainstream media are regularly owned and controlled by Right wing parties, we expect them to provide some reliable information. We can also choose who we see, and follow, on the fediverse. The fediverse still has chronological timelines for us to follow. We are still on control of that social network.
Google News
Many do not like Google, or Google News. I find it a good source for news and information because, within seconds I can see what the key stories are, but I can also see who said what, and when, with ease. I can build up an image of what news is hard news, and what news is likely to be biased or opinion driven, rather than factual.
Media Literacy
Media studies have been seen as a Mickey Mouse course, compared to scientific and other persuits but in the age of social media Media Studies are more important and relevant than ever. What was once a Mickey Mouse course, has become essential knowledge. With the role of mainstream media and Public Broadcast Services being diminished by social media, so it has become essential for people to understand what they are reading, whom it was written by, what their bias may be, and what motivates them.
And Finally
AI can be used to generate fake images, fake videos and fake articles with ease. These videos, for the less discerning web or social media user can mislead them into thinking that something we know to be absurd, is factual. The people who do not have the contemporary news content to differentiate between news, and disinformation are not equipped for the current social media landscape.
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