Blog Post #8

EOTO 2: Disinformation 

What if I posted, as a doctor, I have found the ultimate cure for Covid 19, and it was as simple as having your tonsils taken out. I wrote a scientific statement about how removing your tonsils completely eradicates your ability to get Covid 19 and posted it on Twitter under my account "Doctor Brianna". However, this is complete nonsense. Not only did I just intentionally spread a misleading narrative, but now thousands of people across the world are running to the nearest hospital to have their tonsils removed. I, a doctor, a person of authority over the health realm, intentionally spread inaccurate information. Despite my false claims, I made a significant impact with a straightforward sentence. 

This is the problem with disinformation. 

Disinformation is the spread of false information that is deliberately intended to mislead, intentionally misstating the facts. The most important part of that definition is that it is false information and intentional. Not to be confused with misinformation, which is false or inaccurate information but not intentional. Disinformation has become extremely prevalent in today's society and happens way more often than we even realize. 

So how is it spread? How else than through social media. Social media has increasingly grown in power and influence and facilitates the delivery of fake news. Now, an even more intriguing question: why do people spread misleading and inaccurate information? More often than not, disinformation is spread for four reasons. First, political influences, like influencing elections, promoting a specific narrative, or manipulating public opinion. Second, government motives to ensure government stability or create instability. Third, economic motives to influence financial markets and consumer behavior. Finally, health influences related to issues such as vaccine safety and causes of diseases. This can have significant effects on our society. It causes people to believe statements and ideas that are not true. This can lead to harmful behaviors. Disinformation is used to manipulate people's opinions and beliefs. This leads to the spread of fabricated ideologies. Also, it can be used as a tool to spread malware or scams, leading to data breaches and cybersecurity risks. 

There are many examples of disinformation; it happens frequently. However, I believe we are subject to it more times than we think. For example, have you ever seen an ad so intriguing you just wanted to click on it so badly and see what it says? "Confirmed: Taylor Swift accepts Travis Kelce's marriage proposal." I don't know about you, but this would catch my attention and is something I'd like to read more about. However, when I click on it, my page turns black, and my computer is slow. This was an example of a disinformation ad to spread a virus to my computer. An example from a political or governmental standpoint is Russia during its war with Ukraine. Russia's government spread false claims to justify the war to its citizens, including the recent military invasions and citizen fatalities. 

In the end, I want to go over the positives and the negatives. We can see that disinformation has many dire implications. It's intentionally misleading and dangerous and fabricates fake news. However, on the flip side, I want to emphasize that while disinformation has a negative impact, we can learn something from it. That is, it improves our media literacy. Meaning it enhances our ability to assess the credibility of the content. It improves our skills in filtering out fake news. Finally, it encourages us to engage in our research actively, emphasizing the importance of verifying information.

I wish to leave you with a key takeaway: don't believe everything you see. Always double-check your information.