Ashraf Engineer
December 14, 2024
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
Misinformation and fake news have emerged as serious concerns in recent times, having implications across a range of fields, from internal security and business to social imbalances and politics. The worries have intensified over time as misinformation contributes to how events, ranging from national and state elections to the COVID-19 pandemic, pan out. Misinformation leads to poor judgments and has a lingering influence on people’s thinking even after it has been corrected. There have been various studies on the cognitive, social and other factors that lead people to endorse misinformed views. What’s clear from them is that people are vulnerable to misinformation at a time when polarisation is widening and emotions are running high. What can you do to avoid fake news and misinformation at a time when the mainstream media and social networks are reluctant to address the problem and in some cases even encouraging it?
SIGNATURE TUNE
Misinformation is as old as time itself. Today, it travels on the wings of digital technology but it was used even by Roman emperors to attain and stay in power. They used messages on coins as a way of communicating with the masses and in the last century Nazi propaganda used the press, radio and films.
The internet today enables reach on a scale that was never possible earlier. Digital technology allows senders to customise messages based on geography, gender and psychological profiles. Also, the way social networks are structured, users tend to be served up content that confirms their beliefs rather than exposing them to a wide range of perspectives. The result: digital echo chambers.
The confirmation bias that results from this is a major obstacle to objective thinking. This manifests itself strongly in the way people act, for example, during an election. People land up choosing to believe only what is in line with their existing beliefs, never mind the accuracy of the information or credibility of the source. You support a particular ideology, the digital networks you are part of will feed you information that reaffirms your faith in it and you feel that your beliefs have been vindicated. It won’t matter then whether they are based in fact.
As you can tell, the internet is ideal for the quick dispersal of misinformation.
Because you now hold on strongly to the beliefs, vindicated by misinformation, they don’t change even after the underlying facts have been discredited. Fake news is attention-grabbing and it produces a strong emotional reaction that builds on narratives that exist in the mind.
Take the elections we’ve had in India over the past 10 years. The races are highly polarised and there is aggressive use of the mainstream media as well as social networks to hammer home political messages. Confirmation bias deepens the divide among voters, making it tougher for them to accept views that don’t align with their own.
Often, people’s response to misinformation is blamed on the lack of all the relevant information. The reasoning is that, once they have access to it, people will change their views. However, this reasoning ignores the cognitive and social factors that form attitudes. For example, many deny that the climate is changing despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it is. This is not because they don’t have access to that evidence; it is because of a conspiratorial mentality, the fear of having to change if they accept the evidence and other such factors. This is judgment based on personal or moral values rather than cold, hard evidence.
Sometimes, the more extreme or absurd the claim, the more likely people are to believe it. It’s a ‘you couldn’t make it up’ effect. One example of this is US President-elect Donald Trump’s claim that illegal migrants are eating people’s pets or that the previous election was stolen. Such narratives can sway voters, who see their candidate as a victim in a rigged system.
Don’t underestimate the power of repetition either. Repetition has the power to reinforce beliefs. So, Narendra Modi repeatedly implying that Hindus’ properties or the benefits due to them will be given to Muslims if he loses can start to sound believable when you’re exposed to it repeatedly through social and mainstream media. The repetitive cycle of content amplifies the illusion of truth. It has the potential to sway even those who doubted such claims initially.
The source of the misinformation matters too. People tend to believe those that they think are credible and similar to themselves, which means that members of the peer group – however misinformed – are believed regardless of how competent they are to opine on the issue. When people see their beliefs overlapping with others’, it creates the perception of a consensus. Political leaders have large followings online and offline, so, when they peddle falsehoods, they shape public perception. This was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when some heads of government across the world played down the threat. This led to many people not adhering to preventive measures like wearing masks or getting vaccinated.
Meanwhile, social media and AI tools have become sophisticated enough to even manipulate voters. For example, in 2018, there was the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica uproar when reports suggested that Facebook data of Indian users was ‘stolen’ to influence the elections.
Social media networks have the power to combat misinformation but they seem to not want to. This is because algorithms that enable confirmation bias ensure that users are hooked to the content fed to them. The more time they spend on the platforms, the better it is for the platforms.
As AI and deep fakes get more and more advanced, spotting misinformation becomes even harder. We’ve seen innumerable instances of this – from videos of disturbances in other countries passed off as having occurred in India to even those of prominent political leaders saying or doing things they never did.
So, if we can’t rely on social media companies to weed out misinformation, it’s up to us as individual users to rely on thinking skills and to question whatever information we come across, regardless of the source. The potential for misuse means you must get more discerning about the content you consume. With so much content floating about, a level of scepticism would be healthy but even more important would be the effort to verify what you’re coming across.
So, you could ask yourself questions like:
- Is the content news or opinion?
- Has the content been sourced from somewhere else?
- What is the credibility of the source?
- Where has it been published? If it appears in only one or two places, it’s unlikely to be credible. If it’s important and authentic, a variety of sources will publish and discuss it.
- Who benefits from such content? This will also put in perspective our own biases.
Ultimately, it’s up to us as citizens, voters and responsible members of society to take control of our information habits. By spotting biases, scrutinising information critically and questioning assumptions, we can counter the spread of misinformation. This is critical if we are to understand our world better and to make genuinely informed choices.
Thank you all for listening. Please visit allindiansmatter.in for more columns and audio podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter at @AshrafEngineer and @AllIndiansCount. Search for the All Indians Matter page on Facebook. On Instagram, the handle is @AllIndiansMatter. Email me at editor@allindiansmatter.in. Catch you again soon.
