We live in the information age and information is arguably the most important form of currency now and we’re bombarded with it 24×365. A never ending stream of information, news and data fed through channels like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. And it’s this overload of information that can lead to bad decisions and behaviour. Wikipedia has an excellent quote in their article on information overload:
“Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur.”
This “reduction in decision quality” and ease of information dissemination through social media outlets is leading many to simply forward and repeat information without thought for bias or quality. While on the face of it, the results of this may seem fairly harmless, looking closer shows obvious instances where incorrect information can lead to serious consequences including loss of life.
Cause and Effect. The information we put out can have indirect and direct effects on people. To the point this becomes violent and peoples’ lives and families become targets for hate, violence, criminality.
Cause: we posted false information
Effect: someone believed this and acted
Fake news websites deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation to drive web traffic inflamed by social media. These sites are distinguished from news satire as fake news articles are usually fabricated to deliberately mislead readers, and profit through clickbait. So the aim here is profit beyond the safety of ordinary people.
There have been numerous instances recently where fake news has had serious ramifications:
- A website purporting to be a news source but with a disclaimer (which it curiously spells “desclaimer”) had Facebook buzzing recently with numerous shares in South Africa and worldwide. It claimed that the United Nations had declared South Africa the most corrupt country in the world, one ahead of North Korea. A quick ( 30 seconds ) trip to Transparency International shows that South Africa is not even in the top 2/3rd’s of corrupt countries.
- Pizzagate is a debunked conspiracy theory that emerged during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle alleging that John Podesta‘s emails, which were leaked by WikiLeaks, contain coded messages referring to human trafficking and connecting a number of restaurants in the United States and members of the Democratic Party with a child-sex ring. It has been discredited by a wide array of sources across the political spectrum. The result of this fake news was a gunman firing 3 shots in a New York restaurant based on this false information. This case described in detail in this Wikipedia article makes for a fascinating case study on Internet social psychology.
- The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate. Gamergate targeted several women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, as well as feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian. After a former boyfriend of Quinn wrote a lengthy disparaging blog post about her, other people falsely accused her of entering a relationship with a journalist in exchange for positive coverage and threatened her with assault and murder.
- Marco Chacon created the fake news site RealTrueNews to show his alt-right friends their alleged gullibility. Chacon wrote a fake transcript for Clinton’s leaked speeches in which Clinton explains bronies to Goldman Sachs bankers. Chacon was shocked when his fiction was reported as factual by Fox News and he heard his writings on Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File. Trace Gallagher repeated Chacon’s fiction and falsely reported Clinton had called Bernie Sanders supporters a “bucket of losers” — a phrase made-up by Chacon. After denials from Clinton staff, Megyn Kelly apologized with a public retraction. Chacon later told Brent Bambury of CBC Radio One program Day 6 that he was so shocked at readers’ ignorance he felt it was like an episode from The Twilight Zone.
- Forbes reported that the Russian state-operated newswire Sputnik International reported fake news and fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Sputnik falsely reported on 7 December 2016 that Earnest stated sanctions for Russia were on the table related to Syria, falsely quoting Earnest as saying: “There are a number of things that are to be considered, including some of the financial sanctions that the United States can administer in coordination with our allies. I would definitely not rule that out.”
The list goes on ….
Rumours and false information are not specific to the Internet phenomenon and have been around since the dawn of man. But the Internet has made it very easy to disseminate information, be it true or false. The Spiral of Silence theory comes to mind:
The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, which stipulates that individuals have a fear of isolation, which results from the idea that a social group or the society in general might isolate, neglect, or exclude members due to the members’ opinions. This fear of isolation consequently leads to remaining silent instead of voicing opinions. Media is an important factor that relates to both the dominant idea and people’s perception of the dominant idea. The assessment of one’s social environment may not always correlate with reality.
And that last statement says it all – social environment vs reality. The Social Internet has turbo-charged our ability to both disseminate false information and repeat it, as opposed to reality. And based on a sample of shared stories on Facebook, we’re pretty good at it.
So what’s with all this philosophy in a tech blog? Because false information can have a direct bearing on our online and real security. It’s in our interests to assume information is false before acting on it. We need to be scrutinising news and information published through social media in the same way we need to be suspicious of a phishing email. There are numerous online resources for determining the quality and validity of information so there is no excuse for forwarding on false information. In fact, Social Media can be used as an exercise in learning about false information as a prelude to identifying other online security issues such as phishing, malware, spyware and spam.
If you’re keen to share something on Social Media, make sure you validate that information first. And don’t take offense when someone points out that something you’ve posted may be incorrect – rather accept the correction with grace and move on from there. We all make mistakes from time to time – we’re “only human”.
