Disinformation & Misinformation: A Weapon of Mass ConfusionInformation & Communication Technology has become an essential part of our daily lives. From social platforms to massive databases, there is never ending stream of information. Before the introduction of smart phones, tabs, social media platforms & other smart devices, there used to be limited resources of information. People of that era also had limited access to the fast internet & not to mention the limitation of technology. Today, it is just a matter of a click or voice command to surf through this massive stream of information around the globe. Along with such advancement, there are certain issues that are needed to be discussed.
Disinformation & Misinformation The difference between DISINFORMATION and MISINFORMATIN may seem to be insignificant, some might think that they are the same but they are not. Although the gist is almost the same but intension creates the main difference. Misinformation is when a person passes incorrect information without any intention where disinformation is when a person intentionally passes incorrect information for a certain purpose. Purpose There isn’t any certain purpose or particular purpose but there are purposes according to the situation or expected outcome. The purpose can be political, religious, socioeconomic, etc. Before, digging down a bit more deeper one must understand that this whole phenomenon is like a chain reaction based upon the psychology & behavior of the mass. Today, people don’t have to be forced rather they can be navigated by using their perception which can be easily shaped by regulating the information that they go through the social & mass media. This finding is often used by 3rd parties, corporations, political or social organizations to provoke or to confuse the mass or to divert them from the actual fact or scenario. Sometimes, corporations use this strategy by drawing consumers towards them from their rivals. It is quite common everywhere and it is done by advertising in a provocative manner & publishing it on social media & channels. Those who are running disinformation campaign through the internet and social media can make money too. In 2019, a report from Global Disinformation Index reported that at least $235 million in revenue is generated annually from ads running on click bait and disinformation websites. Psychology & Triggering Mechanism An article from California based organization KQED reported that most of the people on Facebook or other social media don’t read thoroughly everything that they share and it can be seen in every society. Adriana Manago, professor of psychology, University of California at Santa Cruz thinks that - “Shareability is often rooted in the emotional rather than the factual realm. It’s not predicted by the accuracy or the quality of the content, but rather the emotional fervor of the messaging. The extent to which a message has the capacity to arouse our emotions, the more likely it is to spread.” (Professor Adriana to KQED) Captions of contents & articles work as one of the main triggering factor to draw attention of the social media users and readers. It is obvious that after reading that triggering caption, most of the people will share the content with others. Only a few of them dig deeper to check its authenticity. So, it is clear that disinformation presenting in a certain manner to trigger psychological reaction will easily unleash the chain. The stream of disinformation will be spread within a community by those people. Later events are result of misinformation but as not all will get the main source rather a certain group will be notified by those other group of people and the spread will occur in a logarithmic rate. Methods of Spreading Disinformation Today, people are following social media more than print media for surfing through information. The information can be related to any topics, such as: Current affairs, Politics, Business, Science & Technology, Education, etc. According to DATAREPORTAL, there are currently 4.2 billion social media users around the world as of January, 2021. The amount is almost 53% of global population. So, it is clearly evident that people are getting more engaged with social media in this 21st century. Apart from this vast majority of social media users, there are still people who use print media, such as: Newspapers, Magazines as their source of information. According to Oxford Internet Institute of Oxford University, Facebook remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation, with evidence of formally organized campaigns taking place in 56 countries. There are various methods by which disinformation are spread. Some are listed as follows:
Future of Disinformation Artificial intelligence based technology will become the center point of information presenting and processing around the world within next 10-15 years. Proper regulation of those algorithms based smart technologies need to be done to prevent fabrication & falsification of information. We already have that kind of technology. American tech company OpenAI announced that it had developed GPT-2, an artificial intelligence algorithm trained to write English articles based off of 40 gigabytes of Internet text, but decided not to release it after realizing its applicability for disinformation; readers thought that synthetic text samples from GPT-2 were almost as credible as real articles from the New York Times(1). Quantum computer’s one of the greatest sides is its CRYPTOGRAPHY. With the help of Shor’s quantum prime factorization algorithm, it can factor prime number exponentially faster than current algorithms. Therefore, it will be easy for quantum computers to get access to asymmetric encryptions. More specifically, this could be used to plant disinformation within trustworthy news sources by changing content in articles after being published. Additionally, on an institutional level, it could be used to ruin the public opinion of conventionally trustworthy sources by consistently publishing false content from these sources, diminishing the spread of accurate information as well(2). Effects of Disinformation Disinformation followed by misinformation can create dynamic impact within any society. When it is orchestrated it will confuse people with whatever they know, thus confusion will be created within their minds. They will draw out the perception of the reality based upon that information which will also distract the mass from the original fact as their own psyche will collide with the information that they were given in the first place. In the end, the society will become intellectually blind. Disinformation has often turned a community against each other, history confirms that. Often a 3rd party manipulates social media and other resources to spread disinformation to create a false perception about a community within the mind of other people. In fact it will indirectly create hatred, intolerance and stigma. Preventing Disinformation Today, particular information is presented in many ways; therefore, it can be quite confusing to determine the authenticity of any information. Still, some basic tactics can be applied to justify the authenticity of the information.
Reference: 1 & 2 - https://hir.harvard.edu/futureofdisinformation/ Resources:
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AuthorLabib Al Mashfiq Orcko, currently studying Bachelor of Dental Surgery at University Dental College under the University of Dhaka Archives
April 2021
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