1.What is disinformation?
Disinformation is false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or social media.
2. How does disinformation impact a community?
The article Disinformation Online: a Evolving Global Threat, states that “there is growing concern that international NGOs and civil society are vulnerable to online attacks and campaigns that spread false information. ” The article also suggests that disinformation, has the potential to change public opinion, amplify an issue, and change the outcome of political events.
3. Describe a recent real-world example where disinformation impacted a community.
In recent years, the media and social media have played a significant role in distributing public health information. Misinformation and fake news have been a major source of uncertainty and concern among the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. People have been continually searching for information about covid. The majority of people have found themselves overwhelmed with news containing fake stories and disinformation. This situation has generated confusion within the population. The general population has taken the information, including fake news, most relevant to their own personal situation and has used it to develop their own interpretation of the pandemic.
4. Quote the resources in your writing or podcast.
Disinformation Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster
InterAction_DisinformationToolkit.pdf
The “Pandemic” of Disinformation in COVID-19 – PMC (nih.gov)
5. Give an example/share an experience of how disinformation impacted you or your community.
Over the last few weeks, in my soccer program, there has been multiple times that false information has been leaked about who will be cut from the team, about playing time, about future teams and coaches, and about future opportunities. This disinformation led to multiple of our players and parents being confused, questioning the program and coaches.
6. How would you help your fellow classmates identify and stop the spread of disinformation?
There are several ways to prevent the spread of disinformation, but since the majority of our class communicates through social media apps, I think that the most effective way would be to recognize fake news on social media. One way to do this, would be to learn about your own social media feed and algorithm, because misinformation preys on our online habits and biases. Platforms cater information to you based on what you stop to read, engage with, and send to friends. Advertisers can then access this data, which can be exploited by people who know how to do so in order to target you based on your previous actions. As a consequence, we only receive information that an algorithm believes we want to see, which may be skewed and misinterpreted. Start consuming information from social media critically. We often scroll through passively, absorbing a combination of personal updates from friends and family and news stories as well. It’s crucial to pay closer attention to the information in your feed and be able to spot indicators of whether or not news is timely and reliable, such as the source and the publishing date. Those two things can help you interoperate fake news from real information.