Disinformation wrap-up

A few highlights on the subject of disinformation (8 minute read)

For the last couple of months, I’ve been part of Tohatoha’s Climate Disinformation Night School, which, as the name suggests, means I’ve been learning about disinformation related to climate change. It has been an excellent course and I’ve learned a lot. They are planning to run the course again in future, and if you are interested in climate change and disinformation, I can definitely recommend it.

At the same time, I’ve been looking more widely at topics related to disinformation and misinformation, and writing about what I’ve learned. I’ve followed threads and ended up going in a few directions I didn’t expect. I knew, for example, that the drug thalidomide had an important influence on attitudes towards medicine – in the wake of that disaster, there could be no more blind trust. What I didn’t realise was that it would prove to be a case study in disinformation – with unethical scientists deliberately lying and creating confusion even when they knew there were serious problems with their drug.

Since I’ve now completed the course, I thought I’d wrap up my series on disinformation with a few reflections on what I’ve learned, as well as highlights among the resources I’ve found.

cowslip (Primula veris), Finland (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

Disinformation is nothing new

I’d heard about witch burning in Europe and North America before, but until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea it was fuelled by a specific book, Malleus Maleficarum, which was published in 1487. Gutenberg’s printing press had been developed a few decades earlier, allowing the book to be read far and wide. The moral panic over witchcraft was further inflamed by illustrated pamphlets, which became much easier and cheaper to produce in the 16^th century.

The following articles each look at the issue from a different angle, but they are all worth reading for a historic picture of disinformation. The last one, in particular, is a fascinating analysis¹.

The ‘Hammer of Witches’: An Earthquake in the Early Witch Craze – The Historian (qmul.ac.uk) (8 minute read)

How New Printing Technology Gave Witches Their Familiar Silhouette | Smithsonian (smithsonianmag.com) (3 minute read)

Print Culture and the Witch Craze: The "Sex Sells" of Early Modern Europe · Analysis (pubpub.org) (11 minute read)

I’m not sure whether it is reassuring or depressing to think that what we are seeing today, with disinformation rife on social media, is not a new problem. On the one hand, perhaps it is reassuring to realise that the problems we face now are not new or unique. It’s not the case that everything was fine until the tobacco industry decided to play smoke and mirrors with the science about the harm that their products were causing.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s just depressing that we are seeing the same old problems recycled, preventing action on new dangers and targeting hatred and violence against different people.

Either way, it’s still useful to understand the role of social media and the tobacco industry, so here are a couple of good recent articles on those subjects.

Disinformation is part and parcel of social media’s business model, new research shows (theconversation.com) (4 minute read)

How Tobacco Companies Created the Disinformation Playbook - Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org) (4 minute read)

We need to get smarter on the internet

Although there has always been disinformation, the internet really has changed things. When I was at school and university, I was never taught to evaluate the quality of information. If my university held a particular journal, I could consider the information in it to be trustworthy.

Today, evaluating the quality of information is becoming an essential life skill. I’ve written several articles on the subject, so I won’t go into detail here. But I will mention two points that I picked up. The first is that everyone should learn lateral reading – the practice of evaluating the quality of information at the same time as looking at the information itself. Here is a link to one simple approach to lateral reading.

SIFT (The Four Moves) – Hapgood (6 minute read, plus a link to a 3-hour course if you really want to get good at lateral reading)

The second is that some fairly simple approaches may make us stop and think. I was encouraged by this article. Not only did ratings from reputable fact-checking organisations influence how much people trusted articles, but they also became more sceptical of unrated articles. That scepticism is the crucial first step in helping people become more critical about what they read.

Rating news sources can help limit the spread of misinformation (theconversation.com) (4 minute read)

Sometimes it isn’t helpful to call it ‘disinformation’

I feel as if I’m on safe ground when I say that a book making outlandish claims about witches, and recommending that women be tortured to obtain confessions of witchcraft, fits the definition of disinformation. But the distinctions between disinformation and misinformation, as well as between fact and opinion, and even between true and false, aren’t always clear.

It is useful to have these concepts clear in our own heads, but sometimes the labels don’t help. It’s similar to calling someone a denier. There are specific tactics which are common to those who deny the scientific evidence for everything from the shape of the earth to the role of the human immunodeficiency virus in causing AIDS. These tactics are certainly seen in those trying to say that climate change isn’t happening, and if it is, we aren’t causing it. It’s useful to understand the tactics, so I’ve linked to John Cook’s excellent website below. Still, even if someone is clearly using all the science denial tactics to tell you that birds are actually government surveillance drones, calling them a denier to their face isn’t going to contribute to a helpful conversation.

A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial (skepticalscience.com) (7 minute read and four videos 3-8 minutes each)

My reference to birds being government surveillance drones is quite deliberate. It’s a conspiracy theory created by Peter McIndoe in 2017. He’s got some interesting things to say about people who believe conspiracy theories, and he offers some insights on communicating with those who believe what we consider to be misinformation and disinformation. I’ve linked to a TED talk he did in 2023 – it’s fun and thoughtful. #birdsarentreal

Peter McIndoe: Birds aren't real? How a conspiracy takes flight | TED Talk (14 minute video)

Scientific uncertainty is real, but that doesn’t mean everything is equally uncertain

I can remember the heyday of climate change denial – when every time climate change was discussed, the media invited someone with an opposing view. One of the arguments I used to hear was the science is uncertain. It’s a misleading argument, because science is always uncertain, but it isn’t equally uncertain about everything.

I came across a good guide which explains how scientists look at uncertainty, as well as an article which shows how scientific uncertainty can be cynically exploited to create confusion.

Making Sense of Uncertainty - Sense about Science (15 minute read)

We’re climate researchers and our work was turned into fake news (theconversation.com) (5 minute read)

Another argument, subtly different, is that the science is too uncertain to take action. Although this argument is opposed by the IPCC and many, many scientists with appropriate qualifications, it is nonetheless a valid argument. The reason it’s valid is that it’s not a matter of fact but values. We all have different perceptions about which risks we are willing to accept and which we are not. Some people accept the risk of driving without a seatbelt, although I certainly wouldn’t.

The difficulty with climate change is that it isn’t like seatbelts. It’s not about individual risk. Everyone is affected, and some of those most at risk have made the smallest contribution to the problem, like those who live in small, low-lying island nations. Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to solve this together, which means we have to be able to have conversations about values and policy decisions.

When I look back over the last forty years, I feel immensely sad that we have been misled into arguing about what the facts are, rather than working to make the best decisions we can based on the evidence. This sadness is one of the things that motivates me to write about issues like climate change and water, to try and give some clarity on the evidence so we can have better conversations.

Sometimes we need to laugh

There is so much more I could write about disinformation, misinformation and the conversations which are going on in New Zealand at the moment. I will get to that. But right now I’m tired, it’s late and I’ve been struggling with my concentration for the last few days. I need to wrap this up.

Before I do, though, I want to share something to make you smile about disinformation. In 2017, a White House official, Kellyanne Conway, used the term alternative facts to explain claims from a certain politician which were at odds with the evidence. Comedian Randy Rainbow (yes, that’s his real name) turned alternative facts into a song, using the song Jellicle Cats, from the musical Cats. It’s one of the best things I’ve even seen about disinformation. It’s brilliant.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS 😼 Randy Rainbow Song Parody (ft. Kellyanne Conway) 😺 - YouTube

cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum), Finland (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

1. I should be transparent here and say that this is not the kind of source I would normally link to, because it is effectively a blog post from an undergraduate student, but it’s also a well-referenced and well-reasoned analysis.