The 2016 election saw mass misinformation being posted all around various social media platforms. Since then, it’s shown no signs of stopping. If anything, misinformation is being spread in a more hidden way. A survey from NPR, PBS, and Marist Poll shows that 59% of Americans find that misinformation on social media is hard to spot. This number stayed pretty consistent between parties, with 58% of Democrats, 55% of independents, and 44% of Republicans sharing this view respectively.
One rising form of devious misinformation is a wave of “deep fakes”, videos that appear to be real, but are actually computer generated. This could lead to misattribution of quotes, which could ruin a campaign. Another form is memes, which as I discussed last week, are less fact checked, allowing easy misinformation spread.
At the end of the day, you have to put in effort to read reliable sources and do your best to avoid misinformation. To learn more about these statistics and this study, read this article: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/social-media-disinformation-leads-election-security-concerns-poll-finds
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 