EOTO #2: What I Learned!

 Ethan Parker 

10/7/21

Introduction:

During the EOTO presentations, the topic of misinformation vs. disinformation seemed to catch my attention fairly quickly. Throughout this blog post, I will be discussing what all I have learned about misinformation and disinformation, how we may be able to work around this, and what this may possibly lead to in the near future.

Misinformation and disinformation are often confused with each other, many use them for each other and the people listening often do not even catch it or realize that they are using the incorrect term. Misinformation is fake news and false information that is being unintentionally shared while disinformation is the intentional spread of false information. Though it turns out that we all tend to fall for misinformation as well as disinformation. For example, if I were to approach my best friend and begin telling him about how there are really only 2-3 different planets, knowing there are more than 2-3 planets, I would be engaging in disinformation while if I were to approach my best friend and tell him/her that Kobe Bryant has six rings, assuming he has six, would be me participating in misinformation because of the fact that I did not know that Kobe Bryant only had 5 rings, I thought he had 6 and it was unintentional to spread that false news whereas with the disinformation, I was purposely spreading the false news that there are only 2-3 planets. I stated that we tend to fall for disinformation and misinformation oftentimes because it turns out we actually do and through the EOTO presentation, there was proof provided. It turns out, us humans do not have long attention spans and we sort of tend to believe what all we hear instead of actually finding the facts of the information that was told to us. For example, If someone where to wrongfully inform me that Google in no way tracks its users, majority of people listening to that person speak would believe him/her because we usually do not care enough to fact check them or look up the information they are giving to us, instead we believe them and move on with our lives and sometimes we tend to spend the false information we heard. Most of us have people we somewhat look up to or listen to when it comes to speaking out on certain topics. influencers have a big role on what all we believe and what all we may participate in doing because of what they have stated on their Instagram or their Snapchat's. Due to us having much love for those of the famous, we may tend to listen to what they are putting out and push to believe what they are saying. Oftentimes we argue with those who disagree with the ones we love because we believe the ones we love are always correct and do not fact check them at all. Based on who believe and how you feel towards specific subjects determines what all you may believe in the long run, it is best to fact check everything and find out if you are receiving misinformation or disinformation. We love for things to be easily readable and quick to access, this is why we fall for so much fake news and disinformation, here are some ways to cut out the fake news below.

How can we work around misinformation and disinformation? Well there are many ways to do so actually. There are a variety of reliable fact checkers on the internet today as well as old used history books that have much useful information for us in libraries. When not using an official fact checker you should always come to the decision to use and analyze the acronym "AIIAE". "AIIAE" stands for analyze, identify, intent, authorize resources, and evaluate. When analyzing, actually look through the information that is provided, does it even make sense? As well as make sure the site is actually talking about real things, look around and use other resources to find if their story is even real. When using the I, being "identifying", locate what the main objective of the story or article is about, identify the true meaning of the article and figure out does it seem like it should even be talked about or does it seem like some mis/disinformation? When searching for the intent, look to find context clues on where the story originated from and why it is even being discussed and published. Authorizing resources if quite self explanatory as you must use resources to figure out if the site or article you may be looking at is worthy enough to be believed. If you find many different resources that say the complete opposite from what the article is saying, you may want to rethink the article you are looking at as it may not be true. Last but not least is evaluating, after going through the last four steps, you must now make the decision if it is worth it to stay on the site you are on or the article, if you want to believe it, and if you should use this site or article as a source on something such as a paper or presentation. All of those factors weigh in on the evaluate step and they are important as you do not want to continue to spread mis/disinformation. Use these factors to your advantage and read thoroughly and break everything down piece by piece. A site useful to use is the site known as FactCheck Posts. This website supposedly takes the topics of articles that are going around the world and facts checks them and puts out the real story of what actually is going on and what all is really behind the scenes. This site could be very useful for many as they will receive the entire inside scoop on what all is actually going down but we all still must be careful. Use the acronym "AIIAE" to determine if the information seems a bit off or not, we must not trust every site we encounter all because they have a big title and a lot of information that follows. 

The near future could actually look scary for us. I state that with confidence because there is so much fake news and lies in the world as it is today. Oftentimes Middle school and High school teachers do not know exactly if what they are teaching is completely true and it is because of all the fake news that goes around today and we could be at huge risk if it continues. Our world could change and it would not be in a good way due to the fact that our children and younger generation will be growing up in a world of biased and fake information that has been spread like wildfire, they will not know what to believe and eventually that could easily lead to them sharing mis/disinformation of their own, which is not good for our world today! We must be honest, allow everyone to know the truth and know what is actually going on, no matter the opinion, no matter where you stand or how you feel. We need to stop the growth of fake news and social media will strongly have to do with it. As we know, our way of like heavily depends on technology and social media is a huge aspect of technology because it is an easy way to spread information, as well as an easy way to spread fake news. Social media needs to be factually checked, I know Instagram is working on this by developing the sites with the facts under posts, but social media must do more! Social media is where all the attention is and if we can stop the spread of false information on social media, our futures will have much better safety when it comes to the social aspect of life. If our youth continue to go through this lifestyle of hearing so much different information and views on one topic, sooner or later our life socially will begin to become ruined. Not as many people will talk and share ideas or opinions because nobody will necessarily know who or what to believe because everyone puts a certain spin on news now-a-days making it look completely different than what it really is and it must come to a stop. I cannot speak for everyone but I surly do not want to live in a society where one cannot speak to another because of all the fake news that spread throughout our lives today. The madness must be stopped, our futures are at risk.

 Conclusion:

In Conclusion, misinformation and disinformation are two different topics but they both share an equivalent power of dangerousness that is hard to control. In the end, we must be more aware, use our resources, and no longer believe everything we see because it was posted on a certian site or said by a certain someone, we need to stand up for what we believe is right and wrong and fact check almost if not everything before it is to late for our future.