This Week in Misinformation: Troll Farms, Anarchy and… Potential Solutions?
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.
Another week, another bombshell investigative report on COVID misinformation. First, Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post exposed a secret “domestic troll farm” organized by a right-wing group, in which young people in the U.S. are paid to post specific messages — often outright lies — on social media. Following up on that report, Adam Rawnsley of The Daily Beast reported that multiple accounts associated with this plot have been repeatedly sharing dangerous false claims about COVID. This is exactly the sort of behavior that Russia employed to divide our country ahead of the 2016 election. Now, it’s coming from inside our country.
In just the latest example of rampant misinformation having real-world consequences, the Department of Justice this week designated the cities of New York, Portland and Seattle “anarchist jurisdictions,” as a pretext to give the federal government cover to withhold federal funds from the cities. Anyone who actually lives in those cities could tell you that any images of supposed “anarchy” have been grossly exaggerated and overplayed by Fox News and other right-wing media outlets. But people who only consume those outlets have become convinced that these and other cities have essentially been on fire for months.
Very often, when we talk about misinformation, we understandably focus on President Trump. But national columnist Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Inquirer offered a very smart — and frightening — piece, titled “I’m numb to crazy stuff Trump says, but utterly terrified of crazy stuff Americans believe.”
For those increasingly dismayed by all of this and looking for solutions, here’s one place to start. The News Literacy Project has launched a new podcast titled “Is that a fact?,” featuring conversations with experts offering insight and potential solutions to our growing misinformation problem. The first episode dropped this week, featuring a great conversation with a former college classmate of mine, Brendan Nyhan, who is now a political science professor at Dartmouth College and a leading politics and the media.