This Week in Misinformation: Sex trafficking, doctored videos and fake sunken boats
I am passionate about the fight against misinformation. I believe every problem facing our society is made worse by the rampant spread of false and misleading information, and would be made better by increased news literacy education. Each week I’ll share links to excellent reporting tackling this important issue.
A few weeks ago, you probably saw a meme cross your Facebook feed saying “The government just found 39 trafficked children in a double-wide trailer. How is this not the biggest news story in America?” Well, in a must-read piece this week, Michael Hobbes of the Huffington Post systematically breaks down not only why multiple parts of that statement turned out to be extremely false, but also why “simple headlines” such as these “obscure the complex realities of abuse, sex work and the real threats to American children.”
Ashley Parker of The Washington Post summarizes an especially busy week for the Trump campaign and its allies when it comes to spreading misinformation in the form of doctored videos. With less than two months before the election, it’s clear the use of this tactic will only increase among bad faith actors and their willing accomplices.
Speaking of the President, four years after co-opting the term “fake news” to describe accurate news he simply finds unflattering or unhelpful to his goals, he took things up a notch this past weekend, accusing Democrats and the media of launching “a massive Disinformation Campaign the likes of which has never been seen before.” He was, of course, referring to this excellent reporting by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic that was quickly matched by countless news outlets, including Fox News.
As I write this, it’s been less than a day since the first excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book on Trump were released. Since there are accompanying audio recordings of Trump, who conducted 18 interviews with Woodward, it will be interesting to see how the President and his allies will attempt to explain away the damning revelations. I’m concerned that as manipulated audio and video become more prevalent, bad faith actors will begin claiming that real video or audio evidence that they don’t like is manipulated. As with the general “fake news” charge, the real goal is to leave people questioning everything they see and hear, unsure of what to believe.
It’s always important to note that misinformation is not a partisan problem, and that we all need to be careful to check our facts and rein in our personal biases before sharing anything on social media. With that in mind, this week Snopes demonstrated that a photo supposedly showing a sunken boat with a Trump flag was in fact doctored.