~ Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions
Sydney alone has more foreign-born residents than mainland China.
Here is more from The Economist The World in 2020. From the same issue:
Roughly six out of ten Chinese solo travellers are women.
Why 'facts won't save us'
Whitney
Phillips, an assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at
Syracuse University, wrote a piece
for Columbia Journalism Review saying that disinformation, like
environmental pollution, calls for an ecological solution. “Facts won’t save
us,” she wrote.
Phillips
is the author of two books as well as an important paper on disinformation
amplification for Data & Society. Now she’s collaborating with Ryan
Milner, a communication scholar, in a forthcoming book, “You Are Here: A
Field Guide for Navigating Polluted Information.”
She
agreed to answer a few questions for us this week.
1. In recent years, we've
heard people talk about a "war"
on misinformation, even including the suggestion that citizens have a
patriotic duty to fight it. You argue that it should be approached from an
ecological perspective. What do you think are the similarities/differences in
these approaches?
The
book definitely frames these issues in terms of healthy, engaged citizenship;
and that strikes me as pretty fundamentally patriotic! Not toward any
specific country, but rather democracy itself. Something must be done, and
must be done soon, about the spread of polluted information. In order for
that to happen, we argue, we have to start thinking differently about the
problem.
That’s
where an ecological framework comes in, which approaches the issue as an
outright network crisis — one akin to the climate crisis. In the CJR article
and book, that framing begins with our use of “polluted information” rather
than “mis- or disinformation.” By adopting that term (building on Claire
Wardle’s framing), we’re first of all sidestepping efforts to distinguish
deliberate falsehood from inadvertent falsehood — because it’s often not
clear who posts what for what reasons.
What
the metaphor of pollution does, along with the other metaphors we use
throughout the book (we have chapters focused on redwood roots systems, land
cultivation and hurricanes) is encourage reflection on how deeply connected
we are to each other and to the environment. It also highlights how everyday
people contribute to pollution’s spread – even when they’re trying to help,
say by retweeting something in order to condemn it, or to make what they
think is a harmless joke, or, yes indeedie, to fact-check a false
claim.
The
idea that we can still pollute even when we’re trying to help can be
distressing – but we all play a role in what the internet is like. We
therefore can all play a role in how we start cleaning it up.
2. Who is your field guide
for — journalists, readers, citizens in general?
The
book is for everyone, reflecting our argument about the dense interconnection
between networks, platforms, industries, you name it. Just as in an
ecological system, everything online is plugged into everything else. Same
goes for readers. Obviously a journalist at a large publication will have a
wider social media reach than an everyday person with a few hundred
followers; obviously that journalist can spread much more information much
more quickly than the average person.
But
everyday people still contribute to what information spreads across their
networks through retweets and clicks and likes. Even if indirectly, those
choices ultimately help shape— drumroll — what journalists end up writing
about. Conversely, everyday people take significant cues from the things
journalists publish. Compounding this relationship, both journalists and
everyday citizens are influenced in all kinds of opaque ways by the
algorithms that push certain things, but not others, into their eyeballs.
Around and around, with algorithms feeding and being fed by everyday
citizens, who are feeding and being fed by journalists, who are feeding and
being fed by the algorithms.
We
do draw one line in the book, however. That’s the line between citizens of
good faith, those who – regardless of political affiliation – recognize the
problem and want to do something to help strengthen democracy (or at least
not make things any more polluted), and citizens of bad faith — those who are
actively trying to dismantle civil society, and/or who only care about
themselves/their brands/maintaining a stranglehold on their supporters,
everybody else be damned. I don’t know what could convince citizens of bad
faith to care about our shared world or to see all the ways we are
fundamentally interdependent Luckily, there are so many more citizens of good
faith, and so that’s where we’re putting our energy.
3. Getting practical
here, what steps can journalists take right away to do their part to help
clean up the pollution?
The
most critical advice we’d give journalists about minimizing the pollution
they produce is the same advice we’d give anyone else: None of us — not me,
not you, not anyone — ever stands outside the world we’re commenting
on.
We
are all, always, right in the middle of it. Journalists (and everyday people
as well) like to think — because it’s easy to think — that their responses to
particular stories aren’t part of that story. But how and when and if a
journalist (or anyone) chooses to react to something influences the size,
speed and trajectory of the storm.
Enter
our hurricane metaphor. As we argue, nobody would ever point to a single gust
of wind and say, “That’s a hurricane;” instead, hurricanes emerge out of a
whole litany of forces, from water temperature to wind speed to the rotation
of the earth’s axis. Similarly, it wouldn’t make sense to point to one
element of a story – one presidential tweet, for instance – and declare that
that’s the hurricane. Instead it’s a confluence of everything all at once,
including the energy afforded by all the people reacting to the tweet or hoax
or conspiracy theory or whatever.
Telling
that story without highlighting the role a person’s own amplification plays
(especially for journalists, but again, also for everyday folks) doesn’t just
tell a less complete, and ultimately less true, story. It can push the
hurricane to more dangerous places, all because that person doesn’t recognize
where and how they fit when they look up, look down, and look side to side at
the world around them.
. . . technology
- Facebook is complying with Singapore’s controversial new law aimed at curbing misinformation by adding a disclaimer to stories the government says violate the law. “Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information,” the disclaimer said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- The wording, one human rights advocate told The Washington Post, represents the “legal minimum” and signals that Facebook is not supportive of Singapore's requirement.
·
And
now China also has new
rules governing video and audio content online, including a ban on “fake
news” created with technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual
reality.
. . . politics
- Politico laid out four ways in which the challenges of fighting disinformation are evolving in the 2020 election cycle.
- Among the key points: “The election interference tactics that social media platforms encounter in 2020 will look different from those they’ve been trying to fend off since 2016.”
·
Russian
trolls may not have significantly polarized the American public because they
mostly interacted with those who were already polarized, according to a new study
from eight Duke University researchers. Trolls and bots are “a symptom of our
polarized political environment, not the cause of it,” wrote Alex
Shephard in The New Republic.
. . . the future of news
- Report for America’s plans to add 250 reporting positions in newsrooms across the country will include a PolitiFact fact-checker at the Detroit Free Press.
- PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan said the project will cover messaging in the 2020 presidential election and fact-check local issues in Michigan, as (Poynter-owned) PolitiFact does with partnerships in 13 other states.
·
Last
month, we noted a Washington Post editorial saying that President Trump’s
attacks on the media as “fake news” are emboldening despots around the world
to do the same. Now, The New York Times editorial page has made
a similar argument, including an interactive showing exactly where it’s
happening.
Brazilian
fact-checker Alessandra Monnerat, from Estadão
Verifica, caught two popular right-wing websites mixing the results of
three different polls to "prove" that President Jair Bolsonaro's
approval rate had gone up.
Monnerat's
work showed that the misleading articles ignored the fact that polls based on
different methodologies can't be compared or mixed together. It exposed how
the infographic used to illustrate the story was misleading. It also alerted
Brazilians that those two websites had left out all the statistical
information that was available last week about Bolsonaro's disapproval
rates.
According
to all three research institutes cited in the piece (Ibope, Datafolha and
XP/Ipespe), Bolsonaro's disapproval rates have actually risen since he became
president.
What we liked: After Monnerat's fact check was
published, one of the websites issued a correction. On social media, the
misleading post had been shared almost 7,000 times. Following the big impact
of her work, Monnerat said
on Twitter that this fact check was only possible because she had done
three workshops on how to cover electoral polls.
1.
The Partnership on AI and First
Draft are launching a research
fellowship to investigate tactics for effectively communicating video
manipulations to the public.
2.
Tech
firms under fire on political ads are trying every response but the right
one, The Washington Post wrote
in an editorial.
3.
The
Indian Press Information Bureau has set up a fact-checking unit to verify
news related to the government and is asking people to email snapshots of
"dubious material" they come across on any platform.
4.
A
Seattle Times writer explained
this week how a new University of Washington initiative aims to combat
digital counterfeiting and misinformation.
5.
The
Nigerian fact-checking organization Dubawa
is sponsoring a “Week for Truth” campaign that will include events to engage
young students, professionals, entrepreneurs, online content creators and
ordinary Nigerians in hands-on activities to "explore the intersections
between freedom of expression, civic engagement and
fact-checking."
6.
Brazilian
lawmakers invited executives of all IFCN's verified members in Brazil – Agência
Lupa, Aos Fatos and Estadão
Verifica – and other fact-checking organizations to explain who they are
and how they work. At least three sessions have been held so far as part of a
parliamentary investigation commission created to discuss the spread of
"fake news." All fact-checkers agreed that creating new laws to
address mis/disinformation isn't the best way to handle the
problem.
7.
Chequeado,
in Argentina, reported that President Mauricio Macri, who will leave office
Dec. 10, fulfilled only two out of 20 promises he made during his 2015
campaign. The fact-checking organization is ready to start monitoring the new
Argentinian President, Alberto Fernández.
8.
Fact-checkers
Clara Jiménez Cruz (Maldita.es, in Spain) and Emmanuel Vincent (Science
Feedback, in the United States) have been announced as 2019 Ashoka
Fellows. The institution recognizes them as social entrepreneurs and
change makers.
9.
Emily
Bell wrote
a long piece for CJR about how fact-checking has adapted to cover
misinformation and become a booming industry over the past several
years.
10. Russia has waged a disinformation
campaign aimed at turning Lithuania against the NATO alliance, DefenseOne
reported.
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