Op-Ed: Misinformation vs humanity – Place your bets

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are caught in one of the tightest US elections in memory – Copyright AFP/File KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI, Rebecca NOBLE

You can relax – The misinformation industry is doing fine. Political, scientific, whatever, it’s a living for thousands or probably millions of people. All that misinformation has to do is stick in your brain like gum on a sidewalk, which is basically what it is.

All you need is 8 billion idiots to make it work. Misinformation is very much a social mechanic. A guy called Yotam Ophir at Haifa University created an analytical method to break down misinformation and map its spread covering a very wide range of issues. The outcomes weren’t exactly reassuring. The mapping looked all too familiar. If you’ve ever done marketing or distribution, that’s exactly what it looks like.

(The Science News article on that link also contains an unforgettable expression; “…the terrorists dressed casually…”  What, no tiaras? No heavily scripted self-righteousness? No Gucci AK47s with sequins and disco dresses? What is the world coming to?

He was actually talking about the Hollywood-like production and spin a lot of misinformation gets, and he’s quite right. Just your normal neighborhood terrorists was the point of the folksy image. It’s well worth reading that article.)

The drone of headlines about misinformation continues unabated, too. This applies to all news and all sectors. AI is generating a lot of it, and particularly entrenched bots on X, notably pro-Russian bots, are another factor. You can see the histories – “They were gone, their country was gone, but their bots lived on”.

“Meh” about covers it.

Social media is of course the primary way of spreading misinformation. Like the mad letter-writers of the McCarthy era, they have a disproportionate effect. 340 million people don’t have a problem with something. About 3 people do have a problem with it. Therefore, it’s a “market sample”. Like hell it is, but you can spin samples very easily if you call them samples.

There’s one issue about misinformation that hasn’t been covered to death. Why anyone believes or even pretends to believe this garbage. After nearly a decade of pure slop, how can you believe it?

Try this as an analytical basis:

People don’t or won’t think critically. The mere fact that a source contradicts itself or makes no sense isn’t a factor in interpreting misinformation.

In the full knowledge that political misinformation in particular is just misinformation, this drivel is accepted at face value. OK, it’s a peer group thing to a large extent, and the distribution of misinformation is paid for, but so what?

Misinformation from hostile sources like Russian bots is somehow untouchable. People may complain about misinformation, but they don’t seem to complain much about the lack of effort to stop it.      

Shutting down misinformation isn’t as straightforward as it seems. What is called misinformation may be true. It could be shut down simply because someone doesn’t like facts.  

There is a sort-of solution. Theoretically, it’s possible to define misinformation by contrary information. If a balance is struck by comparing information, you might get a credible outcome. AI could do that easily.

A lot of misinformation, however, comes out of thin air. There’s no other coverage, no references. Just a statement with no support. The fact that it’s misinformation is obvious on balance, but there it is. It’ll still stick to some empty head.

It’s easy to misinform people who have no real will to argue. Peer groups tend not to argue about anything. That’s the problem. There’s no doubt that the idiotic dumbing-down of everything is a factor, but this is a true social mechanism. That’s far more dangerous.

Any bets on how this problem will be mishandled in the future? Thought not.

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