News travels fast in our high-tech world of high-speed internet and social media connecting people all over the world. Connecting with a global community is great, however as fast as news travels so does misinformation and disinformation. In an earlier blog I discussed how to sharpen up your information literacy skills and better determine the validity or reliability of internet articles and sources, but there are plenty of other skills and ideas to explore when it comes to not falling for misinformation or perpetuating it across the internet. Professor Sander van der Linden, a Dutch Social Psychologist at the University of Cambridge and one of the world’s foremost scholars on misinformation discusses in his book, Foolproof, how the way we share information can be more than just sharing good sources but the way we frame what we say or try to debunk can also play a critical role. Based on the idea of inoculation theory, Sander van der Linden has developed a tool called “pre-bunking” that helps us recognize common disinformation tactics to defend against them while also being mindful of the ways we refute false information in order to be more productive with our strategies. He even created a free online game that is quite fun and also educates users on the common strategies for spreading disinformation.
Pre-bunking sounds a little bit like “debunking” and the two have similar goals but there are a lot of differences between the two. While debunking attempts to work retroactively to correct false information, it is a reactive skill whereas pre-bunking is preemptive in order to stop the spread of bad information. Experts warn there is a “tipping point” where disinformation is widely spread enough to become a social concern and, as a Penn State University study showed, 75% of internet users don’t read beyond the headline so the immediate phrasing of anything shared on social media should be considered in order to conduct yourself productively. Even attempts to discredit bad information can accidentally spread that information further if it becomes the focus of your phrasing. So how does it work? Let’s take a look.
Sander van der Linden categorizes the most common disinformation tactics into what he calls the Six Degrees of Manipulation, which can be easily remembered by the acronym DEPICT. They are:
Discrediting content using deflection and denial strategies
Emotional appeals to manipulate people
Polarizing groups by separating into two “sides” and driving them apart
Impersonating people or organizations
Conspiracy theories to cast doubt on mainstream narratives
Trolling by falsely amplifying existing tensions, sowing societal discord, and manipulating public opinion.
Van der Linden’s team at Cambridge developed a game, Bad News, that has players use these tactics to better understand them and identify them. His belief is that the more people are able to recognize disinformation tactics, the less likely we will be to share that information.
But the way we talk about it is just as important. Consider when a politician says something that is verifiably false. If a headline states “Politician X says [insert false information] but is that really true?” the headline spreads the false statement by focusing on it. Readers might not read why the statement is false and studies find that debunking claims tends to be a less interesting read and people will come at it with a lower attention span and, especially in politics, some people may perpetuate the false statements simply for trolling or because they support that politician and will not read to see why the statement was false. What van der Linden teaches we should do instead is what he refers to as a “truth sandwich.” Lead with a fact, then introduce the fallacy and the bad logic behind it, refute it, then conclude with another face. The focus should be the truth and so we should start with stating what the truth is. That way, when you arrive at the information you are disproving, it is framed as “this is the truth, so when someone says this you can see why that is clearly incorrect.” It is like writing persuasive essays in high school, you always include a paragraph about a counterargument that you can refute by having already established what the truth is.
There are more advanced levels of pre-bunking that rely on many items from your toolbelt of information literacy, so always be sure to remember how to vet a source and consider the bias of any information you share. Furthermore, van der Linden asks us that when we share anything on social media we should ask ourselves who the information serves, what biases it may present, and what we hope to achieve with sharing it. If it is not productive and in service of truth, do not share it. You can learn about all this in his book, Foolproof, which is available at Herrick District Library as well as many other great resources for learning about misinformation, disinformation, and best practices for navigating the news and internet.
From pre-bunking, source vetting, fact checking, and more, these books can help you improve your informational literacy skills and be more productive about sifting through the good and the bad information on the internet. herrickdl adultpicks
