We are swimming in a swamp of mis- and disinformation. Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno (one of my favorite people on Smart Twitter) breaks it down for us. Misinformation vs. disinformation, coordinated efforts and bots, inauthentic activity, information disorder, holding social media companies responsible, Twitter's misinformation button, global reach of disinformation through the internet, social media companies lack of willingness to share data with researchers/lack of transparency, the need to study the extent of the problem, Facebook revoking access to researchers at NYU who were studying ads, Facebook's built-in/automated tools creating groups of extremist propaganda, Facebook's business model is to promote inflammatory information and keep people engaged, this leads to violence, the anti-vaccine industry makes social media companies over $1billion per year, Fox News and culture wars, what is profitable, erasing history/facts from websites when it no longer suits your agenda (45 and Afghanistan), politicizing vaccines, triaging at hospitals, the people being deceived and the people deceiving them, information as a weapon, using information to identify who is in your group and who's an outsider, corrections and fact-checks don't fix disinformation because people aren't necessarily looking for correct information but what conforms to a certain narrative, how do we reach those people, the demand side of of mis/disinformation, QAnon, infanticide, rabbit holes and algorithms, failed Q predictions, the insidious nature of conspiracy theories, regressive logic, violence and aggression, being fed by the algorithm, difficulty in predicting behavior, asking what is the purpose of this propaganda (who is behind it, where are they from), social media companies could immediately provide more access to researchers and support research to identify activity that may be a warning sign for violence (but they aren't), provide support and intervention by changing the algorithm or giving a "time-out" if too much is being viewed, users need to demand that social media companies participate in this research and prevention efforts, regulation of content and the danger of that, regulating the algorithm as an alternative, the problem with profits, think before you share (don't give disinformation a bigger voice/platform), sharing feeds the algorithm, check the source, the algorithm can't tell why you are sharing (that you like it or hate it) it only knows you are sharing it, train the algorithm for what you want to see.

You can find Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno on Twitter, Instagram and Medium @RVAwonk

Episode recorded on 08/20/21

Episode released on 09/22/21

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Music: Shower Beer by GG Riggs