MNHQ here: FAKE NEWS!!! and related matters

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We at MNHQ have been asked to take part in a discussion with the LSE's Truth, Trust and Technology (T3) Commission, so we wanted to ask for your thoughts on a few topics so that we can give an impression of what MNers reckon.

The T3 Commission says it is 'dealing with the crisis in public information' and wants to 'work with experts, practitioners and the public to identify structural causes of media misinformation and set out a new framework for strategic policy.'

The questions they've asked us to focus on are:

What media literacy skills do citizens need, given that a functioning democracy requires a well-informed public? What kinds of policy regarding media literacy would enable 'due trust' in democratic processes, and give people the tools to assess competing claims?

Is media literacy for children and young people effective and fit for purpose? What about older adults, who sometimes lack digital skills and have generally not received formal training? Is the nature of media literacy itself changing?

What responsibilities for improving information quality and the conditions of media literacy do platforms, journalists, corporations, public relations, advertising, civil society and government have?

What specifically can be done about the risk that algorithmic selection polarises opinions and beliefs?

What expectations are citizens entitled to have about how information and news is presented to them online?

We'd love to know what you all think about any or all of this - thanks in advance

MNHQ

I agree with posters above. Critical thinking needs to be taught at a younger age. Too many people accept everything they see as truth and don't think about the source of the information, or whether or not it can be corroborated somewhere else.
It's not 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes,' any more. It can get around the world several times over before the truth even gets out of bed.

Probability. If it sounds unlikely, it probably is. (No, Apple haven't found a large pile of stray iPads to give away.)
Analysis of motives. Who gains from this story? Who is spinning this? (What job does Boris want)
How to use 'snopes' and other fact checkers.

Cross referencing- how does this story sound when written up by a different media?

That study finding left-wing bias in the BBC was in the Daily Telegraph, though. Attila the Hun would be to the left to the Telegraph.

Algorithmic selection... call me naive, but now we realise the problem with algorithms gathering 'like minded' concepts and people together can we not just stop doing it?

People need to learn about confirmation bias and other biases.
People have a tendency to seek news that confirms their opinions rather than look for views that contradict their opinions.
MN is good as it often has a range of opinions - so other voices are heard.

Just because something looks true and you want to believe it to be true doesn't mean it's true.

But that doesn't stop people believing it and spreading it.

I think students at school need to be taught that.

Teaching critical thought is absolutely essential. It comes in a variety of forms from being used to interpret and understand art works and expressions to analysing text and historical events. Teaching should help foster this critical angle by encouraging students to develop their own ideas using evidence/discussions etc. I've taught at schools where any deviation in this way is almost seen as risky because there's a chance the student might not follow the prescribed route or misinterpret the lessons, so the teachers spoon feed to ensure all stays as it should. The result is some very insular and naive young adults. Of course, this is one aspect of a problem that cannot be defined by any single issue. From my world view I also see what feels like a ever increasing blanket being laid upon the general population that smothers them from the full story and the unbiased facts of world events. Removal of control over our lives and how things run and operate means we have less knowledge of how the world works and so ultimately have less power.

Sorry mumsnet I haven't directly answered any of your questions there really! We all have opinions but very few solutions...

That this is a fashionable thing to be worried about but it's not new.

US Presidents have been declaring news 'fake' since the 1700's. There's been fake news since 1439 and probably before.

The only difference is people are becoming less able to discuss news and find the middle ground. People are becoming too weak, too surrounded by only those who agree with them and look to shut down opinions rather than consider them. On chat forums, people are called 'hairy handed' or trolls simply for having a different opinion.

The problem isn't the media, it's inability to think by those who read it and this is exacerbated by polarisation of politics.

The BBC is obviously doing its job well if both sides are complaining about bias 😁

The BBC is left wing

The structural problems that drive fake news are well known! I can supply references.

Media literacy: meh, yes, is ongoing project, BBC has a schools programme on this that looks a bit limp-wristed. Good luck to them but won't be enough on own to counter the financial incentives that drive fake news. Tax the damn adverts, might work. On scale of (least) 1-100 (most), British adults are (on avg) 38.9% likely to believe in conspiracy theories (can supply ref for that, too, was so chuffed to find it yesterday). Look at conspiracy theory fandom on MN. Many folk want to believe rubbish. Pscyh. theory is that appeal is about believing you have control & wanting to gain status linked to special knowledge (Douglas 2017 or 2018).

There's a good interview Ali Velshi & Sinan Aral (on Velshi's twitter feed) that describes the economics well, that incentivise disseminating fake news. (Aral is at MIT, his paper came out March 2018, and found fake news spread was driven by naive & low social status tweeters) Make the true news as contagious & compelling to know about as the fake news is an under-discussed strategy, even though British Tabloids have done it reasonably well for centuries.

"You BBC types are all so left wing biased!" shrieked some interviewee at Peter Allen.
"You're, um" interrupted Jane Garvey " a member of the conservative party, aren't you, Peter?"
"Yup, for decades now." he replied. (Radio 5, about 12 yrs ago).

That memory still makes me chuckle.

I was telling DH about misleading-scientific discussions you find online, eg., about nutritional effect of some diet choice. This affects people I work with & projects we work on, hence attracts my attention.

"Saturated fats have no link to heart disease!" says webpage title that looks carefully referenced and thoughtful and sane. There are detailed quotes from many articles. These articles employed high rigor methodology, from reputable institutions & research groups.

I go look at original articles being cited... the articles don't say what it's claimed they said. They even say the opposite. Quotes were invented or used so selectively out of context. How is an average person supposed to figure all that? I only spotted the problem b/c I work with the author and I know she never would have written the things as quoted and I can access full text. Pah. Pants on fire Pants on fire...

Do they no longer teach this in history? When I studied it in school a big part was examining sources, determining if the person who wrote it was trying to inform or influence etc etc, 'point, evidence, explain'.

There were people (possibly paid by the leave campaign) posting fake news about the EU all over Mumsnet before the referendum and MNHQ really didn’t seem to care. If anything, they seemed to be in on it.

Most of the mainstream news is untrue. Try uk column.

rosylea

The whole MSM is untrustworthy thing is an idea put about by conspiracy theorists who want you to believe their "alternative facts". Any news source, no matter what it claims to be, has the potential for bias or outright deception.

If both the right and the left think the BBC is biassed then perhaps they're doing something right and producing balanced news.

The trouble with impartial reporting is both sides see bias.

Yes and yes. I also hear regularly that the whole of the UK media is rabidly left or right wing, depending on the person speaking. Perhaps this is an argument for more media literacy.

As a journalist myself I think that it is imperative that children are taught about bias, inaccuracy and malicious falsehood in reporting, and how they are different. Get them to write a news story for different outlets with different audiences - a trade paper, a sensationalist web site, a leftwing paper, a rightwing blog - and see how the thrust and tone and facts which are chosen can vary, without actually being inaccurate (as well as actually being wrong sometimes!). Get them to do a search on a particular story to see how coverage varies, and point out where this is due to opinion and where there are inaccuracies. Get them to understand the difference between news sites, blogs, satire. Show them how easy it is to put their own stories up on the internet - now look, its a fact! Find a news story or opinion piece and trace back every claim and statistic in it to show how lazy journalists repeat facts and claims without checking, sometimes changing them in the process.

A lot of this can be learnt in history lessons really - we did a lot of reading sources and judging whether they were true, biased, whatever, it's just that it was about the Russian Revolution not current affairs, but it has stood me in good stead. It's an argument for the relevance of history perhaps.

Cross post re history seafoodeatit

As an ex science teacher I know that reliability and bias of information sources is part of the KS4 curriculum.
I have also covered media, sensationalism, and bias both in PSHE and cover English lessons.
So in at least 3 subjects at school, students are taught to look at sources of information and consider bias.

However, in my experience, students tend to compartmentalise this skill, and don't then apply it out of lessons.

It needs to come from home as well.

Fascinating, vital topic. Here are my thoughts...

1. Help people understand that every news source is inherently 'biased', from the Beeb to Infowars to Mumsnet. This isn't a bad thing. People need practical skills to assess the quality of information they're getting (are there any quotes? who is quoted? why are they being quoted? etc). Teach that there's no 100% 'unbiased' news.
2. Encourage people to think critically about everything they see on social media, TV etc. Gently question everything.
3. Encourage people to spend time in a bubble that's not their own. It's enlightening.
4. Teach the details of how social media, Google etc select the news that you see every day. Introduce legislation that means these companies have to be more transparent about where the info is generated, and by who.
5. Introduce legislation that treats Facebook etc as publishers, responsible for the content they post. They're editors, and should be legally treated as such. This would speed up their thinking to solve the problem.
6. Fund non-partisan NGOs that fact-check 'Fake News'.

Encourage everyone to engage with news from multiple sources. The echo chambers of the daily mail, the guardian or Facebook aren’t big on offering the other side of the argument.

As above. Who is funding the news?

And remember in some sections of society, general literacy and numeracy in adults is poor. It’s an obvious, but I think, important point that to be media literate, first you need to be literate.

I don't think any counter-measure will be effective but wholescale values change, cultural change. When "the elites" were in charge, the ideal was to follow coherent principles about how to arrive at best decision. Those principles were based on establishing evidence or striving for fairness and objectivity, corroborating the picture from multiple independent sources.

What we have in modern populism instead is "The facts are whatever I want them to be" (alternative), and no need for principles instead what the mob wants is right (hence High court judges become "enemies of the people" for following principles of the law, and the Trump administration is at war with its own justice department, while data supporting theory of climate-change gets branded a hoax.

Before fact-checking organisations get more money, try to coax more people into believing accuracy and fairness matter more than their own self-interests or prejudices.

To me it's not just about spotting fake news, though checking sources is important.
To me there is a creeping radicalisation in viewpoints fuelled by social media bubbles, no platforming, blocking and calling the "out group" either bigoted, phobic, sheep, libtards etc or some other "othering" name.

As a psychologist I am really concerned about this increase in black and white thinking, in group and out group, good people vs bad people. I think all children should learn about ic thinking ,a technique originally used to prevent radicalusation if feeling around religion and immigration, but which has wider application about being aware of existing within "affirmation bubbles". I guess I want people to develop better metacognition about the information they get, the bias it has, the challenges to it etc, in a development of critical evaluation of their "news spaces".

www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/stories/tools-resolving-global-conflict/

We keep hearing local press is dying. That's because half the time local press is regurgitating (crap) national stories. As someone in PR journalists don't want anything local unless it's something horrific. The days of nice stories about locals are gone and it's a shame because it just creates a self fulfilling prophecy for local press to die out yet online and social media local events get so much coverage.

As a society have lost 'agreement' on what constitutes a trusted source for news. And as others have said we have lost the ability to have sensible debates and learn from others.

To the ideas above, I'd add Librarians in schools; Information literacy teaching.

The term 'fake news' is not helpful - you need to drill down into what exactly is going on. There are some very basic fact checking techniques that any librarian could teach you - people often don't understand how Google works - you can learn that in about 30 mins. But the problem is deeper than that as others have already said.

You also need to follow the money - who is making money from this? and how are they making money from it?

Propaganda, misinformation and disinformation have been around since time began - but we had fewer competing narratives to question the dominant narrative in the past.

Examples of the press 'creating' fake news in the past: There was no panic when "War of the Worlds" was broadcast: the printed press manufactured the story to discredit the radio. People weren't terribly bothered by junk mail - but the radio and papers kept reporting on it as a 'problem' in the 80's/ 90's because they were afraid of free mailshots eating in to their advertising revenue

The scary stuff is the way you will soon be unable to distinguish between a fake photo/video and a real one (at present you can unpick a lot of hoaxes using a reverse image search) - see the Barak Obama 'stay woke bitches' video memeburn.com/2018/04/jordan-peele-barack-obama-video/

But 100% the confirmation bias and polarisation of just about any debate is very scary as are things like 'no platforming' - our Universities used to be somewhere were ideas were teased out and aired - now debate is squashed and bullied out of existence.