This semester, I’m taking a course on digital literacy and, while the focus isn’t so finely tuned to misinformation, there is a lot of crossover on the two topics. When I read that I would be documenting another 24 hours of my media consumption, I thought why not just study an organic 24 hours, without me “looking for trouble” like I did last time? Below are the results.

My 24-Hour Media Diet (Fall ’23)

Last time I did this, I started mid-day, which honestly, was very on-brand for me. After all, I often work late and mid-day is sometimes where my day starts. This time, however, I was determined to track one day from dawn til dusk.

August 24th, 2023 at 12:30am: I realize that it’s past midnight and start tracking my media consumption. My sister is visiting from New York and we’re up rather late playing Wingspan, a fantastic bird-collecting board game. It’s her first time playing and she predictably ends up in last place, but the game is altogether close, with my wife taking first by one point. We listen to a few records, including Yo La Tengo’s This Stupid World.

A New Start

9:30am: I awaken. I start my day with the devastating discovery that while I was playing Wingspan with my wife and my sister last night, my Wordle streak ended. 41 days down the drain. No time like the present to start a new streak. I get the answer in four guesses.

I then read about the previous night’s GOP debate. I follow politics pretty closely, but with my sister in town, it seems that both politics and Wordle have fallen by the wayside. I scroll around on X mostly and I don’t end up opening any articles. It looks like Vivek Ramaswamy had a pretty solid showing and Ron DeSantis pretty much got clowned on.

10:00am: After heading downstairs, I watch my son (9), his best friend, and his cousin play some MarioKart. I have trained him well, and he is quite handily beating the competition. I’m tempted to play, but I get wrapped up in a conversation with my sister about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent demise. She’s pretty sure it was a set up. I get on my phone and open the BBC News app first to see what information they have. I end up looking at NPR and New York Times articles as well before I move on from the matter. There’s no proof of wrongdoing, nor is there any evidence mentioned, but Putin’s reputation certainly looms over the conversation.

Game Time

2:00pm: After wrapping up some housekeeping, I sit down to play some games. I’ve got the day off work today and it’s the last day of Fortnite’s battle pass, so I’ve got a little catching up to do if I want to unlock Optimus Prime (which, of course, I do). I play for about 2 hours and hit all my goals. Mission accomplished.

4:00pm: I play Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a mobile game that requires specific actions every day at specific times. 5:00pm marks the end of a Grand Arena Championship, which is a two-day battle against a different opponent each time. I’m in the 48th hour here and I’ve done squat. I sign in and do my fights, winning enough battles against this opponent to secure a win. I screenshot the scoreboard and send it to a friend who also plays. I also post the screenshot in Discord for my in-game pals to see. Today I am royalty.

Family Time

5:15pm: My daughter (7) is trying out for a community theater production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical. We spend a good 15 minutes rehearsing her audition piece, titled Naughty. It’s the song that introduces the audience to the character of Matilda, and she is hamming it up with a thick British accent singing “sometimes you have to be a little bit nough-ty (hyphen added for emphasis)”.

5:40pm: I watch one episode of the Amazing World of Gumball with my kids. It’s a silly, mindless show that they’ve discovered and they’ve probably watched every episode 4 or 5 times. I enjoy it a bit, but it’s just nice to be sharing something with the kids. You’ll note everything we do today is inside because there’s a heat warning in Michigan because it’s so disgustingly hot and humid. Like glasses instantly fog up humid. Ew.

6:45pm: I take my son to his piano lesson and listen in the next room as he learns “Cantina Band” from his Star Wars beginner piano book. He struggles sometimes learning new songs, but he sounds great tonight.

The Great Refresh

At this point, I kind of have to drop a disclaimer. I don’t mean to be preachy in my posts, but I aim to be as honest as I can, and sometimes that means I have to mention politics. Now, for those as plugged into politics as I am, Thursday, August 24th has a bit of an expectation looming over it. Donald Trump announced earlier in the week that he had planned to turn himself in to the Fulton County Courthouse on Thursday. This is his fourth indictment, but one of the key differences for politicos like me is that the Georgia case is taking a mug shot. A mug shot. Of a former president.

Here’s where I can’t not let my politics show: I’m no fan of Trump. I’m like, really not a fan. And so, I spend a good amount of time refreshing my X feed to see this mug shot drop. I’m not proud of it, but I really do get caught up in the moment wanting to see it posted online. It’s one of those moments where it truly feels like you’re living history. Those are always weird moments and Trump has given me a lot of them.

Showtime

8:30pm: Each week, my podcast cohost and I host what we call a “Dathchat”- a live video chat open to anyone who supports our show on Patreon. Most weeks, we have a couple people stop by and chat, but this week no one showed up, which is great because I had to work very early the next morning. This meant we were able to record our weekly episode promptly, so after prepping the show notes for about an hour, we recorded episode 356 of Galactic War Report from about 10:00pm to 11:00pm.

The topics vary from week to week as we have to address game updates that drop rather frequently. There weren’t really athat many updates this week, so we have to piece the show together by reporting on our own activity during the week and doing some features on strategy. Sometimes a slow news week gives us a little breathing room to play with the format and that’s what happened this week. Solid episode.

I know a lot of people who podcast, and one thing I appreciate about our show is our quick turnaround time. From the moment we stop recording, I can usually have a show edited and uploaded within an hour pretty easily. I cruise through editing this episode (my Garageband game is strong) and play just a bit more of Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes before I crash, preparing to get up for work about 4 hours later. What can I say? I am dedicated (have a problem).

The Wrap

So what have we learned?

Admittedly, this was one of my lower-intensity days. I spent a lot more time gaming than I normally do and I only left the house for a brief piano lesson since the air conditioning was so crucial in this heat wave. (I recognize it’s been worse in Arizona this year, but this was Michigan’s hottest couple days.) I think maybe there’s some knowledge to be gleaned by how dedicated to gamin I was with the end of Fortnite’s season and the very late night session of Galaxy of Heroes. I have always been aware of my demons, I just let them have a little fun on this day.

I think the two other interesting notes with regards to my media consumption are:

1. When my sister said Putin shot Prigozhin’s plane down, my instinct was to check multiple sources. As much sense as it makes for Putin to exact revenge on someone who so directly insulted his authority so recently, I have seen too many assumptions prove false to take anything like that at face value. My official stance is: I have no proof but it would track.
2. The feeling I had when refreshing X for Trump’s mugshot. As I mentioned, I’m no fan of his, and I’m sure there was some degree of schadenfreude involved, but I really felt like I was living through a distinct moment in history. To be blunt, after the last few years, I could really do with less of that feeling as I am (and I think we all are, to a degree) just over it.

The post Another 24 Hours 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.

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.