Misinformation on Social Media: Is It To Late? (Jonathan Castella's Blog Post #9)

Misinformation, to some extent, has been present on the internet and social media from the very
beginning. However, it feels nearly unavoidable in today's internet landscape. In the internet of old, the misinformation someone would come across was mostly innocent in nature. This would come in the form of celebrity death hoaxes or posts urging users to share; otherwise, you give Facebook access to your personal information (example 1 provided below). In contrast, the misinformation of today feels much more sinister. From misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic to false allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Political polarization has acted as a driving force for a lot of the misinformation currently on social media platforms. The absolute volume of misinformation is so vast that some users do not know what to believe anymore. This has created a sort of echo chamber for misinformation related to politics, only heightening the already existing political polarization. In addition, with the advent of artificial intelligence, it has become even harder for some people to tell what is and is not true. The response to something users disagree with is often met with the phrase “Oh, that must be AI.” Social media users have been fed so much misinformation the line between truth and misinformation has been truly muddied. Speaking anecdotally, I have come across social media users who deny facts using this very phrase. Oftentimes in our current internet landscape, it feels like we are living in a post-truth world. This makes me ask the unfortunate question: are we too far gone? What do we do now? As information professionals I feel as if we should try to find some sort of answers, but it feels almost impossible to do so. So, I pose these questions to all of you.


(Example 1)

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