In 2011, Donald Trump went on Fox News and made a claim that started an absolute wildfire in the conspiracy theory community. A theory that had been floating around the internet for years finally got the exposure it needed, and Birtherism erupted, engulfing half of the Republican party and creating a path to the White House for Mr. Trump and a path to the mainstream for conspiracy theories.

While Trump is often credited with the origins of the birtherism theory (that Barack Obama was in fact not born in the US and therefor ineligible for the presidency), its genesis lies within the Democratic party. In 2008, some supporters of then candidate Hilary Clinton circulated a 2004 email embellishing an old claim about her Democratic primary opponent Barack Obama’s “secret Muslim faith” by adding that he was in-fact born in Kenya, not in Hawaii as he had claimed. The power of anti-Muslim fear in the early 2000’s was weaponized against Barack Hussein Obama for having a Muslim-sounding name.

Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth

chain email from 2008

Though Clinton and her campaign never promoted the lie, it gained enough traction to circulate for a few years before it really took off when it started coming out of a big enough celebrity mouthpiece.

By the time Trump embraced birtherism as a theory in 2011, It had already been shot down by both parties and the majority of Americans considered the matter settled. But Trump’s statements acted as a celebrity endorsement, turning the once-settled matter into a new raging fire. With the powers of fear, celebrity, and the repetition Fox News was able to provide, birtherism finally had what it needed to flourish.

By the time Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011, it was too late. At that time, only 55% of Americans were confident he was born in the US. Its release had some effect on squashing the doubt, but not as much as you’d think. If people were arguing based on facts, perhaps its release would have had a more meaningful impact on those numbers, but since this campaign was driven more by fear, the facts just… didn’t matter.

Which brings us to the present.

How Birtherism Led to The Big Lie

While Trump eventually caved to pressure from both sides to disavow the birther theory and announced that Obama was, in fact, born here, the stage had been set. He had proven to himself and to the world that we were moving into a post-truth era where falsehoods, even once debunked, could not only be used to inspire, but could become emblems of entire movements. When Trump lost the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden, he used many of the same tactics he had success with in birtherism. He wore denial like a badge of honor, making claims to appeal to his supporters’ emotions and repeated the message at every opportunity. The formula was simple: a theory in search of evidence.

While he continued to push this misinformation, many of his most loyal constituents, hoping to gain the favor of Trump, and thereby increase their own celebrity, repeated the claims and did his work for him. Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy) even held a “cybersymposium” wherein he claimed he’d prove the election was stolen, only to fail to provide anything tangible. But again, we’re not dealing with scientific evidence here. Trump, Lindell and others know that. They motivate people and push their “theories” through fear and repetition.

As he now faces 91 federal and state felonies, the most severe of which are related to The Big Lie, some of this could be unraveling. Still, with nearly 70% of Republicans still believing President Joe Biden’s win was illegitimate, it may be years before this conspiracy leaves the mainstream. Until then, it might be wise to brace for another conspiracy the next time a Democratic is elected President.

The post Birtherism – How Desperation and Fear Created a New Ideology appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

The fact that my spell checker doesn’t recognize “chemtrails” as a word should tell you something about their existence, but here we are…

On September 7th, a Facebook user in the UK posted a video of him removing a reddish-colored layer of sand off his car with a magnet. His claim? This dust is evidence of a large government conspiracy known as “chemtrails.” The video appears to have been removed, but a similar video by another user was posted to Twitter (now X). I’m not linking them because that’s only going to drive traffic and if there’s one thing conspiracy theorists love, it’s an audience.

This event first appeared on my radar via Reuters Fact Check blog, a misinformation-busting website run by the one of the world’s biggest and most venerable news agencies. I’ll go ahead and spoil the ending for you, the story is fake- chemtrails are not responsible for an overnight coating of sand on a neighborhood in the UK. But the validity of this claim isn’t what I mean to address. Rather, I want to shine a light on how Reuters determined it was false.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the chemtrails conspiracy theory, it’s a claim that the governments are secretly releasing harmful chemicals into the atmosphere via jet exhaust. What exactly this chemical is and what its purpose might be is always left open for discussion but common claims involve sterilization, reduced life expectancy, and even mind-control.

Reuters’ Process

Here’s the original Reuters post if you’d like to follow along.

One of the most crucial techniques when studying outrageous claims like this is to consider the source. Who is telling you that the government is releasing harmful chemicals into your air via jet exhaust? Is it a trusted source such as a Harvard Research Group (who debunked the whole idea of contrails) or is it some guy on Facebook or Twitter (still now X)?

Reuters engaged in something we call lateral reading, the process of checking multiple sources for the same story to see if everyone agrees on the facts or if you’re only seeing one viewpoint. It’s called lateral because one typically reads a website top-to-bottom, but this encourages readers to hop sideways into a new browser tab and check the validity of claims before continuing down the original page.

The other thing Reuters did was check with experts. This sand must have come from somewhere, right? So by consulting with an expert on sand- say someone like Professor Barbara Maher, director of the Centre for Environmental Magnetism & Palaeomagnetism, Lancaster University or Professor Richard Harrison, head of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, both of whom corresponded with Reuters to offer explanations into the phenomenon they were witnessing.

The sand came from the Sahara and was blown a very long distance to the UK in a well-documented northerly wind pattern. Saharan sand contains multiple minerals that are magnetic, such as magnetite and maghemite and would appear reddish in color due to the relatively high amount of iron oxide present in most samples. Makes sense right? These are all well-understood and documented occurrences in our world and they don’t need a government cover-up to make sense of the situation.

Cutting Through the Noise

This dips into one of my personal favorite philosophical tools: Occam’s Razor. In short, Occam’s Razor suggests we not make things overly complicated.

Next time you read a story or see an image online that seems completely outlandish, remember to stop reading, open a new tab, and poke around a bit and see what other sources are saying about the story. Then consider the source is it a reputable source like a Harvard Research Group or the head of a university earth sciences department, or is it a stranger on social media? Then finally, as William of Ockham (and to a lesser extent, Avril Lavigne) reminds us, don’t go and make things so complicated.

The post A Case Study in Misinformation: Chemtrails in the UK appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

Misinformation is a particularly messy problem. And problems this messy often require a wide array of tools to solve. It’s hard enough protecting yourself from fake news, but it’s quite a different process teaching your kids to spot it.

If you have young children, teaching them to avoid misinformation is a responsibility that may seem daunting. And that’s fair, because it kind of is. You see, as messed up as the world we live in is, this is nothing compared to the fake news world they’re going to inherit. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that between 2016-2020, misinformation on Facebook grew by 242%. So let’s make sure these kids have a chance.

Here are some tips on how to talk to your kids about misinformation:

While recent research has suggested there are a multitude of learning styles, the most basic understanding of learning styles for kids often revolves around VARK, a concept that breaks learning into

• Visual – best with images
• Auditory (or hearing) – learning by listening
• Reading & Writing – reading and note taking
• Kinesthetic – learning by doing

You may find that tailoring this approach to your child’s learning style is needed so try to be as flexible as they require.

I find it’s easiest to tackle a grown-up conversation by asking kids what they already know. I have a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old and when asking them about fake news, I found my 9-year-old already had a basic understanding of what it was, so it was easier to guide the conversation knowing this.

Once it’s clear what they already bring to the conversation, start poking around. Make up a claim and ask them how they feel about it. It could be anything from flat earth theory to chemtrails to the moon landing hoax. Or you could even make up your own wild claim, whatever you want to run with. Ask them what questions they have after you present your claim.

Questions to foster in them:

1. Who Said It?

You know how there’s that one kid at school that’s always making stuff up? When he tells you something that seems fishy, how do you feel? Did he tell you where he heard it?

Some websites and news organizations are like that, too. It’s important to know where your information is coming from to know if it’s reliable. And you should expect any good website to show legitimate sources to any claims they make. Parents: if your kids ask about a claim they saw online, sit down with them and look at the source. You may have seen the media bias chart from Allsides floating around your own online sphere. It’s a great start, and they offer details on their own site about the methods they use to determine news outlets’ placement on their chart. This doesn’t tell you how legitimate a story is, but it may shed light on any biases. Additionally, investigate the URL. If it’s a long string of characters, or it looks like it’s impersonating another site, beware. Additionally, google the site. Scroll a bit and see what others are saying about it.

2. Why Would They Say It?

Explain to your kids the reasons people misinform. If a turnip salesperson tells you that eating two turnips a day makes you live to 150, you’d probably think they’re lying. And it’s pretty easy to see the reason they’re lying to you. If you believe their misinformation, you’re going to buy a lot of turnips, and that makes them money. This is the “root” of understanding of misinformation online. If spreading fake news makes people money or gives them power or influence, they’re going to keep doing it. Identifying the motivations behind articles takes some of that power away.

3. What’s The Evidence?

Can they back up what they say? Just like that kid at school whose uncle worked for Nintendo back in the day or that kid who had a girlfriend in Canada you’ve never met, bad news sites use bad sources too. Sometimes they’ll quote an “expert,” but they’re really an expert in a totally different field. Like if a world-renowned nutritionist gives advice on foreign policy, or an electrician recommends a certain medicine. Yes, they’re experts, but not on every topic. I know they sound like grown-up concepts, but I like to talk to my kids about my two favorite razors: Occam’s and Hitchens’. I find they really resonate with kids if you break them down right.

Occam’s Razor is often oversimplified as “The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.” While that’s not the whole concept, it’s enough to get the point across to kids. Try something like this scenario: A window is broken and there is a baseball on the living room floor. Now which of these do you think happened – someone was playing outside and threw or hit that baseball through the window, breaking it, and then the ball landed in the living room OR A professional baseball player broke into our house and left his baseball here on the carpet, meanwhile a ninja punched a hole in our window? It’s an absurd example, but it demonstrates the principal brilliantly that a simpler explanation is usually correct.

Hitchens’ Razor simply states that “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” If no sources are given, you just get to move on. So when someone tells you their uncle works for Nintendo, ask them what he does there? Make them do the work supporting their claim. It’s not your job.

4. Is It Sensational?

Explain to your kids that emotions are tricky things and people do irresponsible things when their emotions take control. Just like temper tantrums, or things you regret saying after getting in an argument.

If a website makes money off you clicking a link, you better believe they’re going to find the easiest way to get you to click it. A 2022 study by Christy Galletta Horner and her father, Dennis Galletta of University of Pittsburgh determined that “fake news headlines are created to evoke emotional responses in readers that will cause them to interact with the article in a way that allows the creator to make a profit (through clicking on the link to the full article, by sharing the article, etc.)” So consider emotional headlines and articles a big red flag.

As part of this sensationalism, identifying a claim as secret information that “they” don’t want you to know about is an old tactic. No one can resist a good secret. When someone says that “they” don’t want you to know about it, it’s both because secrets are exciting and because it gives them an excuse when you search other sites and don’t find that claim anywhere else. Skeptoid Media calls claims of suppression “the territory of conspiracy mongering.” Double whammy.

Ask A Grown-up

Finally, let them know that they can ask you. Always make yourself available to coach. It takes time. It takes work. But it can be fun, and it’s definitely worth it.

I hope this helps guide a conversation with your young ones about misinformation and how to spot it. Kids should be allowed to be kids, so they don’t have to be experts, but they are going to need to be ready to deal with misinformation, because it’s not going away.

The post How To Talk To Young Kids About Misinformation appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

How do you know if a news site (or any site for that matter) is giving you good information or if they’re pulling your leg? Like most questions about misinformation, the answer is a bit tricky. Fortunately, the good folks at The Trust Project have devised an easy-to-use tool for ferreting out misinformation called the 8 Trust Indicators.

I’m going to be using these indicators to get a feel for just how legitimate two news sources from Arizona are. I’ve never been to Arizona and am completely unfamiliar with their local news, so this is a great test of the indicators as I’ll bring minimal bias to this test. Before we begin, let’s take a look at the indicators:

The 8 Trust Indicators

The 8 Trust Indicators are a set of things to consider when determining if a news source is trustworthy. They peel pack each article to reveal who’s bringing you this story and why. I strongly recommend you spend some time familiarizing yourself with them if they’re new to you. A full analysis of the indicators is beyond the scope of this post, but here’s a quick glimpse. They are:

• Best Practices – Do you know who’s behind the news?
• Journalist Expertise – Who made this?
• Labels – News? Opinion? Or what?
• References – What’s their source?
• Methods – How was it built?
• Locally Sourced – Do they know you? Your community?
• Diverse Voices – Who’s in the news? Who’s missing?
• Actionable Feedback – Does this news site listen to me?

Now let’s put these indicators to use in two case studies involving Arizona news outlets.

The Arizona Silver Belt

First up is the Arizona Silver Belt. I’ll note again that I’ve never in my life read the Silver Belt, so I’m wide-eyed and ready to spot anything that looks amiss. The first thing I notice is an abundance of ads. I know news organizations have to pay the bills somehow, but there really are a lot to deal with here. My computer literally stopped in its tracks while all the ads loaded. It’s an old computer, so that happens from time to time, but it’s worth noting. Now, let’s go down the list:

• Best Practices

Trying to find information regarding the policies in place for reporting here is a bit tough. I scrolled down to the footer and found a Terms & Conditions link, which takes you to a pretty general website T&C, but with an ad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on a T&C page before.

I also see at the bottom “©2023 News Media Corporation.” A quick bit of lateral reading uncovers that this is in fact a news conglomerate that produces 34 different local newspapers across the country. The website for NMC does not actually have an SSL certificate, which is a little troubling.

The Wikipedia entry for the Silver Belt says it’s been around since 1878, and the Google search results don’t show a history of scandals involving the paper.

• Journalist Expertise

The top story on the day I am accessing the site (April 23, 2023) is Globe Council addresses infrastructure issues. That’s possibly the most local-news headline I’ve ever read, certainly not sensationalist. It’s written by David Sowders of the Arizona Silver Belt and the accompanying photo is credited to him as well.

Based on his LinkedIn profile, it looks like Mr. Sowders has been a reporter in Arizona for at least 9 years, almost 3 of which are with The Silver Belt. This lends credibility since it establishes him as local. He also seems to write a lot of the stories about city council goings-on, so he seems pretty established.

• Labels

You’d be hard pressed to find an errant opinion on the Sun Belt’s website. Trending stories are as follows:

• April 4-10 Arrest Reports
• Gas leak leads to evacuation at Globe PD
• Carmen Slough Celebrates 109th birthday

As you can see, there’s little room for doubt that this is a news site that focuses on news. There is a section called “Viewpoints” in the dropdown menu, where I though I might find something spicy, but there is only one article there and it’s about a sorority that would like to thank a fellow named Ian for helping commemorate one of their sisters who passed away.

• References

For the article about the infrastructure issues, it is implied that Mr. Sowders gathered this information from a city council meeting, but but I suppose it wasn’t explicitly stated that he did. There was a quote from council member Mike Pastor included, and his name checks out as a member.

• Methods

As stated above, this seems like a cut-and-dry report from a city council meeting. Perhaps he recorded it, but he was most likely in attendance as well. All the facts contained in the piece seem to be derived from that one meeting with no additional conjecture.

• Locally Sourced

David Sowders regularly contributes to the Silver Belt. As mentioned in his bio, he’s been in the Arizona journalism scene for at least 9 years, so he’s a definite local.

• Diverse Voices

It does seem that there is a lack of diverse voices here. There are only a couple reporters who regularly contribute and there’s not a lot of input from the community. Demographically speaking, Globe is a strikingly white city, but that doesn’t mean there are no stories to be told here. I rate this one a 6/10 for at least including that birthday party.

• Actionable Feedback

Remember when I mentioned the Viewpoints section where the sorority was giving a big thanks to Ian? That one lonely post was from 2017. It seems like the Silver Belt really doesn’t go out of its way to engage with readers, which could be problematic for establishing trust as a news source. There is a sense of a news bubble where maybe they’re just not digging enough for community engagement.

East Arizona News

Up next is East Arizona News, which I’m approaching just a tad differently. Before I even engage with the site, I’m looking them up. The problem here, of course, is “East Arizona News” is a very vague search term that nets a lot of different news outlets in East Arizona. It’s worth noting, however, that the outlets website, eastarizonanews.com does not appear anywhere near the top of Google search results.

• Best Practices

East Arizona News claims to be the product of Metric Media, a network of local news sites whose stated aim is to “fill the void of community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media.” Let’s get lateral. Search results turn up that Metric Media is in fact a series of local news sites but it doesn’t take long to find a bit of dirt on their incentives.

When the New York Times clearly defines you as “Mimicking local news” in a headline, that’s usually a really bad sign for your trustworthiness. I feel like this is a big enough red flag that we could just dismiss anything this site has to offer, but for the sake of the blog (#content), let’s continue.

• Journalist Expertise

This should be good. The lead story at time of writing is titled “Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme” and is only credited to East Arizona News, no reporter.

Let’s look at this for a minute before we even address the contents. Not crediting a reporter is something a news outlet may do when they release a statement that is meant to represent the whole editorial board or something like that. This article is presented as a story about two representatives who criticize “Democrats” and their “scheme.” This language tells you a lot about incentives. They’re clearly defining who they oppose and calling their plan a scheme.

This is a highlight of the type of language used here (note, this is not a quote from one of the representatives in the headline, it is from the article’s main text):

Democrats’ $600 threshold for reporting Venmo payments will make next tax season even worse by involving the IRS every time an American sells a couch, concert ticket, or pays the neighbor to mow the lawn.

East Arizona News, Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme

More on this later in the References section…

• Labels

How is this labeled? As opinionated as it feels, this is actually labeled Local Government. Criticizing the Biden administration and the IRS doesn’t feel like “Local Government,” nor does it feel like news. There is clearly a degree of manipulation happening here.

• References

This is my favorite part. The aisle seat on a long flight. The nacho that’s cheese-glued to three others but still only counts as one. You know, the good stuff.

At the bottom of the article, there is a link that reads: Original source can be found here. Did you click that? You probably don’t have to to know it takes you somewhere great. Specifically, to Congressman David Schweikert’s website, where this whole article exists as a message from the Congressman. Well I guess there’s your journalist.

• Methods

The methods for our first example are pretty clear. It’s campaign propaganda for Congressman David Schweikert and its origins and reason for existing on a “news” site are murky.

For a second look at methods, let’s turn to an article titled “Ducey signs voter fraud measure: ‘Arizona is a leader in election integrity’.” It is credited to an Andy Ngheim. Using lateral reading (and our Holmesian powers of inductive reasoning), let’s try to ascertain how it came to be. A search on his name on muckrack.com returns a lot of hits for the Madison/St. Clair Record, a local news outlet near St. Louis, MO. He writes for them extensively, but also news outlets in Austin, Houston, and Kern Valley, CA. Plenty of journalists do freelance work, so this feels pretty normal.

The only source given is a press release from former Governor Ducey’s office. Of note: this story is about election security, which The New York Times says is a very common topic in these Metric Media fews sites. I even discovered that Mr. Ngheim writes about one article per month in one of these Metric papers near me way over in Michigan, which is a great segue to the next indicator.

• Locally Sourced

Is any of this locally sourced? Well, Congressman Schweikert is certainly “representative” of Arizona (the 1st congressional district, to be precise), but what about Andy Ngheim? Muckrack.com shows that he mainly writes in the St. Louis area and he writes monthly in Southwest Michigan. I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Ngheim is not someone I would consider “local.”

• Diverse Voices

To say that East Arizona News has a diversity issue is perhaps true, but only as a technicality. There’s really just… very little news. Most of the site’s articles are either press releases or just data points about business registrations, migration, and PSA’s seemingly scraped off local social media accounts for libraries and the like. I though maybe I’d see something more in the “Ethics” section, but it’s literally a long line of articles about when Catholic masses are scheduled. That’s it.

• Actionable Feedback

Can you reach East Arizona News? Sure. But why? The site lists news@eastarizonanews.com as a contact method if you have a scoop or opinion, but I don’t see a single thing on their site that leads me to believe that they engage with any readers. There are no published opinions, no corrections, really just nothing that looks like a local citizen of East Arizona had any role in creating.

The Verdict

The Arizona Silver Belt seems like a perfectly legitimate (if unimaginably unexciting) local news site. It features local reporters, useful local information, and very little pizzazz. In stark contrast, East Arizona News offers very little of substance to any reader thirsty for local news.

These tools certainly do work, but only if you’re willing to apply them. I suppose the biggest takeaway here is that, if you’re not familiar with a news source, don’t just assume they’re legitimate because the website looks good. Check the site with some lateral reading and dig just a bit to see why that article showed up in front of you.

The post A Tale of Two Papers appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

With misinformation spreading faster than a virus in a ball pit, online communities are having to devote more and more time to finding that misinformation and figuring out what to do with it. Some sites, like Facebook, have become breeding grounds for misinformation and no amount of mitigation measures have seemed to stop that. Other sites like Parler promise that absolutely no content will be removed unless it’s from a terrorist, child porn, or a copyright violation. So what is a sensible misinformation policy in 2023? To answer that, I’m looking at two online communities that vividly illustrate the need for effective misinformation policies: Twitter and, that’s right, Pinterest.

Pinterest

When I think of Pinterest, I think of three things: ideas for kids’ birthday parties, farmhouse chic decor, and an almost superhuman dedication to fighting misinformation. Pinterest seriously does no play around with misinformation. The first sentence in their policy makes that incredibly clear:

Pinterest isn’t a place for misinformation, disinformation, mal-information or the individuals or groups spreading or creating it.

Pinterest misinformation policy, 4/16/23

This doesn’t leave as much room for interpretation as say Facebook, who may suppress certain controversial topics or posts, but doesn’t outright remove content unless its back is against the wall.

Additionally, Pinterest has specific policies for voting, health, and (most recently) climate misinformation. This all suggests that not only is Pinterest serious about fighting misinformation on its platform, but it has a plan and it’s still evolving it.

Pinning Down The Hammer

Let’s look at one case of Pinterest taking action against an offender: LiveAction, a pro-life non-profit that aims to outlaw abortion, found their site was blacklisted by Pinterest in June of 2019. More specifically, LiveAction.org had been added to a list of pornographic websites. This meant that Pinners (Pinterest’s term for users) could no longer Pin (Pinterest’s term for bookmark) anything from LiveAction to their Boards (Pinterest’s term for homepage). When LiveAction discovered this, they reached out to Pinterest to ask what had prompted the blacklisting. Pinterest’s response was to let them know they messed up.

Before one jumps to conclusions about Pinterest’s idealogical interests and agenda, it’s worth noting that LiveAction has been found time and again to use misinformation as a means of moving people to act on their behalf. That said, Pinterest has policies against denying climate science and misrepresenting vaccine info, and even banned weight loss ads in 2021 to promote body positivity, all classically liberal moves. Still, Pinterest’s user base remains evenly split liberal/conservative.

Twitter Then

Hoo boy, Twitter. To understand the misinformation picture on Twitter, one must look at the defining moment on the bird app’s TL, Elon Musk’s acquisition for $43 billion in October 2022. While a new CEO always means new rules, the degree to which Musk mangled Twitter into something different is really unlike any that came before.

In analyzing Twitter’s misinformation policies, let’s start in the pre-Musk era, when things were simpler. Perhaps one of the most layered approaches to fighting misinformation, Twitter’s process involved labeling content and offering context when a tweet (Twitter’s term for — oh, you get it) contained misleading info, incorrect info, or something that just needed additional context. This approach grew exponentially during Donald Trump’s presidency, when he would repeatedly tweet things that were either outright false, harmful, or just misleading. The Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021 eventually led to his permanent (-ish) ban.

Twitter Now

One of the reasons Elon Musk cited for buying Twitter in 2022 was to “help humanity.” He saw it as a great opportunity to open up free speech, an objective he believed the current ownership didn’t share. He wanted to greatly reduce the moderation and fight back against “woke.”

One of the first things he did was end Twitter’s policing of COVID-19 information. Twitter had previously taken steps to fight the spread of COVID vaccine misinformation, a move that Musk saw as anti-free speech. In removing this policy, he has opened the floodgates for dubious claims about COVID vaccines, death rates, and the origins of the virus, sometimes even making those claims himself.

The Takeaway

Ultimately, every platform needs a misinformation policy that aligns with what they’re trying to accomplish. If you’re trying to keep your Pinners safe, stomp out any sign of misinformation and never look back. If you’re a bit more loosey-goosey with facts maybe just forgo a policy altogether like Truth Social did (not a joke, there is literally no policy). Perhaps the toughest scenario to navigate (as a platform) is one where you had sensible policies in place but the self-described Chief Twit just tossed them out.

Good luck out there.

The post You Can Learn A Lot From A Platform’s Misinformation Policy appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

The internet has forever changed the way we communicate. The people we surround ourselves with, the ways we keep in touch with them, and even the ways we define community are all drastically different now than they were even ten years ago. In many ways, it helps us communicate, while also sometimes debilitating our traditional means of discussion.

One of the results of all these new capabilities is the ability to discover like-minded individuals across the planet, and even further develop a sense of like-mindedness through influential messaging and a bit of groupthink. Misinformation loves groupthink. These internet communities vary greatly in size from small local groups on Facebook to massive operations such as QAnon.

One of these pockets developed shortly after Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.4 billion in 2012. Online fandoms have always been places of passionate debate and speculation, not necessarily known for rigorous fact-checking, but what I’ll refer to as the Dark Side of Star Wars fandom really found its wings once Lucasfilm started releasing new Star Wars films in 2015. When disapproval over creative choices was weaponized via some of the more controversial YouTubers, bloggers, and podcasters, a lot of fingers started to point toward Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. The claim after every perceived stumble that Lucasfilm makes is:

Kathleen Kennedy is Getting Fired

Let’s look at a very specific recent instance of this claim:

Note: the above image is intentionally not a link to the video discussed here in an attempt to limit traffic and prevent a spike in views. See, I do my part.

The claim made in this video is that Kennedy is going to be fired “soon” from her position with Lucasfilm. My alarm goes off as this is a claim I’ve literally heard for years, so let’s dive in and see how reliable this information is.

Before I even get to the contents of the video that makes this claim, I’m going to take a quick look at the source. A quick look at his YouTube profile reveals that Vito has been around since 2010 and has over 34 million views at the time I’m writing this. He’s got 348,000 subscribers and posts roughly 2-5 videos in an average month. In YouTube terms, that’s a pretty well-established source.

Now let’s look at his typical video content.

Vito’s clearly targeting people’s emotions by framing almost every video he makes about a “disaster” or just listing all the ways in which he’s been disappointed by a piece of media. This is a red flag that tells me Vito isn’t going to release a video about Kathleen Kennedy unless there’s some opportunity for him to criticize or insult her. The tendency to criticize everything he posts about sets up an expectation that he doesn’t just expect her to get fired, but also that he wants her gone. Now we’re seeing some incentive for him (and by extension his viewers) to want to believe this news.

So let’s look at the video. It starts with an all-out thrashing of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy — just a few minutes of setting up impartiality /s. He then goes on a sexist rant about how a man should be in charge of Lucasfilm since Star Wars is for boys and a woman can’t understand it. He softens the blow however with a “Not to sound sexist, but…”

“So often we hear — from YouTubers we hear: Kathleen Kennedy’s getting fired next month, she’s getting fired next week, she’s getting fired tomorrow. We’ve been hearing this for years now. It’s never coming true. Well the rumor now is that Kathleen Kennedy is finally going to be out at Lucasfilm and I’m going to tell you why this time I think it might actually be for real.”

-Vito, Kathleen Kennedy Fired From Lucasfilm (YouTube)

So let’s look at his exact claim: he says that Hollywood insider John Campea has announced that, as part of Bob Iger’s return as CEO of Disney, Kennedy is on the chopping block. Now let’s trace the info back to its source and see what Mr. Campea said…

Who is His Source?

John Campea’s claim on his video was that, after claiming that Iger’s return cemented Kennedy’s future with Lucasfilm, he got an email from “somebody very connected” followed by a phone call from somebody “even more connected” telling him that he was wrong and that she will be let go around the time of Indiana Jones V’s release. No sources are given and he is the only one reporting this particular event. He goes on to express that he hopes it’s not true, but that these sources are very trusted.

A quick look into Mr. Campea’s channel show’s he’s got 322K subscribers and posts very frequently. His videos tend to be fact-based and general entertainment news, not as inflammatory as someone like Vito. A Wikipedia search reveals that he’s worked in the film industry for over 15 years for companies like San Diego Comic Con, AMC Movie News, and Collider, so we have reason to believe he’s a reliable source, but who sent the email and made the phone call are still unknown.

So who else is reporting it?

A search on the phrase “kathleen kennedy fired” returns several results, but the sources leave something to be desired. Star Wars News Net, World of Reel, and ComicBook.com definitely all spend time speculating about Star Wars, but trusted sources like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, or Vanity Fair have no coverage at all. Hmm…

Switching over to the “videos” tab, we see there are in fact plenty of videos claiming this and they’re *checks notes* all from Mike Zeroh, a many-times debunked clickbait Star Wars YouTuber.

Plausability

So now we are left with a claim by Vito, a YouTuber who has made a career of inciting rage and scapegoating Kathleen Kennedy that, based on his source (John Campea — not bad)’s source (unknown — bad), Kathleen Kennedy is being fired from Lucasfilm soon, a job she’s had since 2012 and has been rumored to be getting fired from since at least 2018.

There is no reason to believe Kathleen Kennedy is getting fired any time soon. She’s been in her current role for 11 years and for most of that time, the Dark Side of Star Wars fandom have been either claiming she’s about to be fired or calling for her to get fired– sometimes both. YouTubers who make dubious claims about insider information are incentivized to appeal to your emotions to drive traffic and earn more ad money. They face no repercussions for “getting it wrong” like a news organization would. Take what they say with a grain of salt, or just don’t take it at all. If something they say sounds interesting to you, see who else is reporting it before accepting it as fact.

Most importantly, if it sounds questionable, question it.

The post Case Study: Kathleen Kennedy is Getting Fired! appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

Misinformation is everywhere. Many of us are familiar with Russia’s efforts to affect the 2016 election on Facebook. Bots on Twitter are definitely a problem, even if we can’t agree on the scale of that problem. But if misinformation is everywhere, it only makes sense that anything that could inoculate us from that threat would need to be everywhere. Enter Tilt.

Disinformation-stomping developer Tilt has created a series of quick games that use research-based methods to expose how misinformation works. These are browser-based games, so you can play them on your PC, phone, iPad, even through Edge on your XBox (absolute torture). This is my experience with two of these games.

Bad News (2018)

In February 2018, Tilt released Bad News, a game that teaches players media literacy through inoculation theory. The idea is that by seeing how this all works and teaching people how they, too, could become a misinformation tycoon they will be better armed to spot and call out out fake news in the future.

The game is broken into 6 levels (Impersonation, Emotion, Polarization, Conspiracy, Discrediting, and Trolling), each representing a skill you must master in order to be a true disinformation star. This sets a clear expectation for how long this experience will likely take.

To start, the player is instructed to post something nasty on Twitter (in-game). A generic criticism of the government works for a while, but you’ll need to crank up the absurdity if you want to get some traction. You eventually create a Twitter account for JOE BIDEÑ, announcing a plan to annex Canada and rename it North North Dakota. I should stress that this game is pretty funny, too. #YouGotAnnexed

Periodically, you’ll check in with your followers to see what they’re saying about your “news site.” I went with the name Honest Truth Online because it was just dripping with the self-importance of some of my favorite disinformation peddlers.

Level-by-level, you’ll learn about each technique by giving orders to use a bot army or create memes, even prompting the player to use ad hominem attacks against fact checkers. This hand-holding experience keeps this game on the rails and prevents players from exploring just how depraved they might get if they could really run a misinformation empire.

Breaking Harmony Square

At first glance, Breaking Harmony Square appears to be Bad News… again. And it kind of is. The gameplay is incredibly similar, the goals seem the same, and it even includes the same in-game surveys (for further research by Tilt). There are however two key differences:

1.) You get to name yourself Carmen Sanfrancisco

2) It’s local.

When I say the gameplay is similar, I mean it’s almost entirely the same game. Aesthetically, it’s a bit more advanced, with a wider color palette and cartoonish style, but playing through the first few levels felt like déjà vu. I didn’t quite understand why they would make a second game that seemed to do exactly the same thing as the first.

It took a while for me to really grasp what was going on here. Where Bad News was a text-based tycoon style game illustrating how one might use a “news site” and social media to manipulate public opinion and incite unrest on a national scale, Harmony Square brings that same concept to your city council meeting. There are local problems, local reporters, and local reactions. You’re using the same techniques, but it’s all happening in a small town.

The Verdict

The problem of misinformation is not one that can be solved with one tool. Just as misinformation moguls push content through multiple social media, blog, and even television channels, so too must any who aim to fight misinformation be armed. These games offer a very quick and easy way to wrap your head around how misinformation starts, what its aims are, and most importantly, how to spot it.

Tilt states that the aim of these games (of which there are others, by the way) is to act as vaccines against misinformation. Lisa Poot, senior project manager at Tilt, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz said “People’s minds can be inoculated, just like their bodies” and I really think that’s it. If we can train people how to misinform, we may have a chance to beat it.

The post I Won The Misinformation Game. Twice. appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

When considering a career in journalism, one must ponder such questions as “Can I make a real difference?,” “How will I survive on such meager pay?,” and “What am I even doing with my life?,” but perhaps my most vexing concern is “How will I get through to those that simply don’t trust the media?”

Where We’re At

People trust the media less now than at any time in the last 40 years. In a way, it’s hard for me to conceptualize that people whose sole job is supposed to be informing the public and shedding light on injustices, corruption, and new discoveries are some of the least-trusted people in the world. But alas, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2021 concluded that between 2016 and 2021, public trust in the media (in general) dropped from 76% to 58%. I know there are some bad actors in the field, but even if you could correct for that, 58% is shockingly low. So what gives?

How It Started

Looking further into the Pew data, Democrats’ trust in media has declined somewhat, but around 2016, Republican’s trust of the media plummeted from 70% to 35%. Trust had been eroding bit by bit since 9/11, when every newsroom in America devoted everything to the terrorist attacks. What followed however was a slew of decisions based on ratings rather than facts.

The coverage of the US invasion of Iraq didn’t do any favors for building trust in the media either, with a rather strong pro-invasion bias appearing in much of the media. Additionally, the massive scope of the new 24-hour news cycle was riddled with blunders such as Geraldo Rivera’s accidental disclosure of classified battle plans.

The drastic cut in trust around 2016 however is a direct result of Donald Trump’s continuous attacks on news organizations such as The New York Times and Washington Post. In addition to creating nicknames such as “The Failing New York Times,” he went so far as to call the news media “the enemy of the American people.”

Trump’s war on the media has always resonated with his supporters, who often see any criticism of Trump as unfair and politically motivated.

The Role of Misinformation

Arguably, Donald Trump’s political career began with an infamous bit of misinformation. As early as 2011, Donald Trump played a key role in spreading the misinformation that President Barack Obama was not born in the US. As more and more Republican voters bought into this conspiracy theory (which was repeatedly debunked), Trump saw a winning formula for getting the support he needed to secure the Republican nomination for 2016. What followed was a milieu of falsehoods such as:

• The size of the crowd for his inauguration

• The path of Hurricane Dorian

• The severity of COVID-19

• Windmills cause cancer

or even

• Who won the 2020 election

All of this is to say that Donald Trump did more to normalize conspiratorial thinking and distrust of experts (especially journalists) than anyone in modern history and the damage he’s done will take some time to repair.

Where We’re Headed

As we approach Donald Trump’s potential indictment this week, his supporters may soon be faced with yet another line they’ll have to cross: Once Trump is has been arrested, will they still support him? Inevitably, many will. He’s been impeached twice, banned from social media platforms, lost an election, incited a coup attempt, and was even dumped by longtime ally Fox News. Each time, he seems to bounce back, barely shedding any supporters.

What This All Means To Me

I recognize that it’s easy to vilify your political opponents in this increasingly polarized climate. It’s easy and even a little satisfying to fall into a pattern of simply trying to score points on the other side, and I admit I’ve been guilty of that on occasion (see @theothersean on Twitter).

That said, my relationship with Donald Trump’s assault on truth is not just one of mere disagreement. I am not blogging about the man because I didn’t vote for him or because I disagree with him on, well, just about everything.

I’m shining a light on him particularly because as a journalist, it is literally my job to clean up his mess.

The post Donald Trump Tried To Break the Media with “Fake News,” And Someone’s Got To Fix It appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

After 24 hours analyzing my media consumption, let me tell you: we all have some work to do.

Ferreting out misinformation is tedious work. We all know it’s out there, lurking on the dark web, in extremist Facebook groups, and of course on a certain “news” channel whose name I am omitting in an effort to keep this blog Fair & Balanced.

I spent 24 hours recording my media diet—much as one might track calories on an actual diet—to see how healthy my consumption of information is. You’ll note it is not midnight-to-midnight, but rather 7:30pm-to-7:30pm. I suppose that’s incredibly me. Anyway, here are the results:

My 24-Hour Media Diet

7:30pm: (at work) We’re short-staffed and we close in a couple hours, but I managed to squeak in a quick look at the New York Times app. scrolled a bit and ended up with a piece about how black vultures now inhabit New York City thanks to Climate change. Real uplifting stuff. It’s from the New York Times, whom I generally trust to get facts right, and vultures in NYC seem pretty verifiably there or not there, so I move along.

8:00pm: I have a conversation with a coworker about Donald Trump’s impending arrest this week. It really is popping up everywhere, but I first saw it on Twitter as Ron Filipkowski (independent right-wing watchdog- definitely biased, but based) posted a screenshot of the former president’s all-caps declaration form Truth Social earlier. I’m not on Truth Social, but I’ve seen the same screenshot making the rounds all day. I find it and show him.

10:00pm: After work, I head to a friend’s house and have a couple beers and some faux-chicken dip. No media (other than a great new wave playlist) is consumed. I head home and go to bed.

10:00am: It’s not the character trait I’m proudest of, but the first thing I do when I wake up is get back on Twitter. I see Kat Abughazaleh (video producer for Media Matters for America and Tucker Carlson expert) is asking for bad memes with liberal bias, specifically about Fox News’ alleged categorization by the FCC as “entertainment” for a new video she’s working on. I’m sort of familiar Fox having used that defense in court, specifically for Tucker Carlson. The story goes that “no reasonable person could consider his show news” or something to that effect. I look it up and sure enough, there is no such thing as an FCC classification. Now I’m really looking forward to her video.

11:30am: After making the kids breakfast, we hang out and play some games. Not a lot of facts to check other than my son claiming he’s “goated.”

12:00pm: At the kids’ request (I’m so very proud), we watch The Empire Strikes Back.

4:00pm: While running errands, I listen to NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. It’s a fun episode with some great jokes about the impending seaweed blob attack headed to the east coast this summer. I verified with a few sources that this was, in fact, not a bluff the listener challenge. Of note, was an ad for tonight’s episode of On The Media, which is about— drum roll… talk radio’s media bias! I’m absolutely listening.

6:30pm: I watch a bit of the Pistons/Magic Game.

The Nuclear Option

7:00pm: I’ve gone almost 24 hours and haven’t come across anything that really strikes me as misinformation. I’ve seen misinformation-adjacent things (Kat’s tweet, the ad for On The Media), but haven’t really gotten anything meaty. So I do what I must…

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not explicitly trying to drag Fox News, but I have a half hour left to try and spot some misinformation, so I’m looking for some low-hanging fruit. I’ve never seen Sunday Night in America, but I’m hoping this Gowdy fellow will give me at least a morsel I can work with. Reader, I am swimming in morsels.

The top story for tonight’s show is how unfair it is that Trump is set to be arrested on Tuesday. More specifically, it is a hit piece on New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg. I’ve seen a lot of commentary on Twitter that Trump attacking Bragg’s character is really a tasteless thing to do, but here’s a “news” organization doing the same thin. I hear language like “God forbid you pay someone hush money,” and “…will lead to the demise of our country” all while Gowdy answers his own questions more than he lets his guests respond. He does so in a very raised voice as well. I am really seeing the “no reasonable person could believe this is news” defense playing out before me.

One point that they keep hammering on is the fact that Bragg has pledged to reduce sentences for a lot of people and won’t be pursuing arrests for a lot of crimes that New York traditionally might have. They draw a false equivalence to Trump’s situation asking “Why are they going after him?” as if his situation is the same as a teenager from a marginalized community carrying marijuana.

A quick bit of fact-checking shows that his intentions for not prosecuting as many people is that he believes these prosecutions are hurting the black community. CNN reports that in a memo released to the NYPD, Bragg claims states that he had guns pointed at him multiple times growing up Black in Harlem. This was incredibly easy information for me to find, yet Fox News chose to leave all of the important context out of the story in an attempt to discredit Bragg as a partisan hack. This is manipulative and there is clear intent to sway viewers to a political position.

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually watched Fox News, but it is just the same as I remember.

Even the ads were dubious. There were promos for supplements from Balance of Nature and Super Beets, who claim they are—and I am not making this up—the #1 Pharmacist Recommended Beet Brand. Both products have websites full of rave reviews, but amazon reviews like this one:

My Takeaway

Overall, I feel like my media diet is healthier than my actual diet. I subjected myself to Fox News today and that was a whole thing, but I also ate some Taco Bell, so it really wasn’t my finest day. I really do try to consider sources and only put trust in organizations and individuals who earn it. Honestly, I don’t know exactly how we’re going to get through the normalization of all this misinformation, but I’m certainly willing to work on that.

The post (Mis)Adventures in (Mis)Information appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.