Introduction
Misinformation on social media has been increasing enormously and has transformed many areas of daily life. This paper introduces the following content. After the introduction, we describe different types of information operations that contribute to the creation and spread of misinformation. In the subsequent sections of the main body of the paper, we explore case studies of three different types of misinformation in a quasi-chronological order: intentional misinformation put online by an individual; evasion of misinformation detection by manipulation of the algorithmic context; intentional framing of misinformation; and long-term effects of misinformation on user communities. In the conclusion, we then show how our case studies contribute to an understanding of the impact of misinformation on users and systems.
Today, it is increasingly common for misinformation to appear in the public domain and to inform public discussion. While definitions exist for "misinformation," we use a definition that focuses on the veracity of information, viz. information that is not true but is presented as true. Our work encompasses both news and what is referred to as "applied or personal misinformation." Misinformation has the potential to spread quickly and widely among users, due in part to the algorithmic filtering of content and the considerable effort that goes into achieving user engagement. Alas, it can be straightforward for people to create misinformation, to adapt it, to propagate it, and to remove indicia that would allow a recipient to assess its validity. Public illness resulting from COVID-19 has been reduced with COVID-19 denial. Providing an in-depth understanding of misinformation on social media platforms is crucial to helping to reduce its reach, if not its generation. We examine the spread of misinformation and the effect it has on users in the digital context in order to address these gaps for the four objectives listed. Misinformation sharing and user engagement have been a target for research in recent years. Misinformation and favoritism algorithms explore studies that examine the algorithmic spread of misinformation.
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Types and Characteristics
There are many types of misinformation, but almost all can be characterized by two dimensions: intent and perception. Misinformation spread unintentionally includes simple mistakes and distortions, like rumors, hoaxes, or conspiracies, but intentionally spread false information, like propaganda or fabrication. In some cases, such misinformation can link together both voluntary creation by the author and automatic further production distributed by social media algorithms. Misunderstandings are a form of misinformation, but different from categories of misinformation that come from misconceptions or distorted memories. Other forms of misinformation include disinformation, hyperpartisan junk news, and online conspiracy theories.
False information has characteristics optimizing its method of spread: visually compelling, psychologically salient, and unhinged from society and common understanding. Sensationalism, an appeal to emotion, and selective moral judgment are repeatedly linked with the likelihood that misinformation will be disseminated. False pictures, often in the form of memes or image macros, heighten the virality of misinformation, particularly when tied to ideological or moral identity. Similarly, the viral nature of selective quotes, often both inaccurate and out of context, can be spread in both written and spoken formats, such as quotes shared as text or video clips. Given the mechanics of audience engagement and ads on social media, a recent trend has been the increasing spread of false video footage. Also, we cannot forget the global spread strategy of sensationalistic clickbait, which acts as a honeypot, and other articles are turned into these clickbait articles. Motivations to share misinformation can be organized into a variety of typologies, although they are often kneaded together within an individual user.
Impact of Misinformation
Misinformation affects individuals in a variety of ways. People reading misinformation can experience anxiety and doubt, as they do not know what to believe, which information to trust, and how to recover previously held beliefs. People might find it difficult to abandon previously shared beliefs, which ultimately tends to lead to confusion about what is true or false. Over 60% of participating American adults reported feeling at least somewhat anxious after being exposed to misinformation. Misinformation erodes trust in credible news sources. The more often participants had been exposed to misinformation about the Iraq War, the less trust they had in traditional news five years later. Misinformation makes people doubt science, academic experts, and news media. Indeed, there is even evidence that the presence of misinformation itself erodes trust in science.
The effects of misinformation at the personal level can be far-reaching, but its effects on societies and the way our political systems function are even more severe. When widely diffused, misinformation can confirm false belief systems of groups of people, leading to the formation of echo chambers, where users interact and share information almost exclusively with like-minded individuals. Consequently, misinformation can polarize political identities to the extent that voters base their decisions on entirely divergent sources of information. Moreover, the spread of misinformation can influence citizens' behavior.
Misinformation can convince people to engage in certain behaviors—for example, voting in a certain way or buying a certain product—that serve interests at odds with their own. Media and laypeople alike have publicized several instances where misinformation influenced citizens en masse. Their testimony includes interference in several elections, the rise of conspiracy theories surrounding public health, and the presence of a so-called 'post-truth' society. In this environment, truth is generated in large part through political and social processes; the consensus of political tribes. Knowledge is shaped by the vox populi, until the voice of the people becomes indistinguishable from the voice of influencers. Social media algorithms designed to maximize engagement make the spread of misinformation an inevitable by-product. While some have called for social media corporations to engage in 'algorithmic responsibility,' others push for a more radical approach. The promotion of digital media literacy has been suggested as a way to empower individuals to sift through this morass of truth and lies. At the societal level, the spread of misinformation can affect social consensus and shape public policy in potentially disastrous ways. The case studies will explore the different ways misinformation can have a wide-ranging impact on societies.
Notable Misinformation Campaigns
Since the beginning of the information age, people have deliberately spread propaganda, hoaxes, and misplaced ideologies. As technology has improved, however, misinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories have thrived, enveloping swaths of the public in various mistruths. This section studies some of the most notable misinformation campaigns, examining the strategies used and how the public and authorities reacted. Each of these case study entries focuses on a single misinformation campaign that has garnered attention, analyzing what the misinformation was, who was responsible, which platforms it was spread on, what the goal of the campaign was, and how successful it was. Furthermore, we attempt to account for what prompted creation in the first place and how the misinformation affected the public and the political sphere. Ultimately, these case studies interrogate past incidents of misinformation and their underlying strategies to help better handle future cases of misinformation. The spread of misinformation that incites real-world violence is hinged upon the belief in a corrosive untruth that many hold, which is why we begin our overview with an analysis of political misinformation. Political misinformation is, for better or worse, a vehicle for public attitudes that many people believe in and plan public policy around.
Strategies for Combating Misinformation
The ideal strategy to combat misinformation on social media platforms incorporates a combination of tools and approaches, from creating and enforcing platform policies, educating platform users through media literacy programs, and fact-checking information spread on the platforms. Social media companies have implemented a variety of approaches aimed at stemming the spread of online misinformation. Platforms have reported a variety of policies and tools that are used alone or in combination to detect and suppress the spread of false news. User education plays an important role in reducing susceptibility to online misinformation, making media literacy a key component of programs aimed at reducing social media-fueled conspiracy theories, partisanship, and partisan venality.
Fact-checking organizations can adjudicate the accuracy of potentially misleading claims; however, the reach of these organizations does not yet extend to all aspects of the internet. Providing rapid, reliable, and non-partisan indicators of fact-checked information to social media companies could provide a meaningful addition to available remediations for some information-sharing users. Most serious considerations of online misinformation and social media over the last five years have focused on responding to the phenomenon. However, increasingly thoughtful stakeholders, including social media companies, are entering a cacophony of critical response with forward-looking schemes for battling online misinformation. Perhaps more decisively, social media companies have begun pushing these discussions further into the implementation stages in order to pilot test promising anti-misinformation tools before they are incorporated more broadly. This type of proactivity is essential to increase the possibility of denting the fake news problem, in part because solutions that anticipate the leading edge of misinformation production will take time to develop and yield results.
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