“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” That sentiment is just as true today as it was when author Jonathan Swift wrote it in 1710 — though I shudder to think just how many social media influencers might assume Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is an earnest proposition, if they ever got around to reading it.
Indeed, social media is beset by falsehood, exaggeration and misinformation. We all know how the spread of so-called “fake news” — a term ironically popularized by lover of misinformation Donald Trump — influenced the 2016 election. But falsehood flies at the local level as well, as we’ve seen time and again. Whether it’s misinformation about a local tragedy or disaster, or misinterpretation of intentionally vague state legislation, Nashvillians in recent years have seen bad information soar through the local social media sphere while the facts of the story come trailing behind.
Mike Caulfield is a research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. He studies rumor and online information literacy, and a few years back he created a method known as SIFT, or “The Four Moves,” to help internet users sort truth from fiction. SIFT is an acronym, with each letter representing one step in a four-part series of sifting through online information: stop; investigate the source; find better coverage; and trace claims, quotes and media to the original context.
Caulfield notes that Google has taken SIFT principles and incorporated them both in links that are included on search result pages and within the Chrome browser. He also notes that in a trial application of the method at several dozen universities, he and his fellow researchers found “a sixfold increase in students being able to assess the reliability of information and defend that.”
“If you’re reading the retweet of the blog post of the news story of the press release of the research article,” says Caulfield, “you need to think about whether you’ve gotta go a little bit upstream, right?”
Caulfield notes that even established news organizations bear some responsibility here. He points out that election misinformation specifically often comes from “decent publications that put up decent stories,” but use exaggerated or inflammatory headlines to drive traffic.
“We’ve come a long way in that news organizations realize they have to address the stuff out there that’s dangerously false,” he says. “But at the same time, there is this continued problem — the financial model for carefully researched truth is weaker than the financial model for just spewing out bullshit. And the disparity between those two continues to create an environment that is hard to navigate for people who want to get good information.”
The method for figuring out whether what you’re reading online is real and reliable effectively comes down to two key principles, says Caulfield: “Where did it come from, and what do knowledgeable people say about it?” That means taking a minute to consider and actually examine the Instagram infographic, the pithy tweet or the incendiary Facebook post before sharing it. And this is especially true as we enter the era of copy generated by artificial intelligence models.
“AI text really projects a certain authority that it doesn’t have,” Caulfield says, referencing increasingly popular artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT. “In general, right now, if I was to have one broad suggestion to people, it’s: If accuracy of the answer is important to you, don’t get it from a large-language model at the moment.”
Ultimately, Caulfield thinks the average person has the capacity to incorporate the general principles of media literacy in their pursuit of online information, even if they seem resistant.
“Some people just prefer false, wrong information that supports their point of view, and that’s always the case,” he says. “But most people, in my experience, would like to believe they’ve come to their beliefs in a reasonable way, and would like to know that the things they are reading are not completely fabricated.”
From Nextdoor drama and TikTok bans to broadband access and beyond, here’s a look at Middle Tennessee’s internet footprint
