We Already Have the Vaccine for Misinformation Virus

Along with Covid-19 pandemic, there is another virus that has been spreading around the globe and reaching unprecedented proportions: the plague of misinformation, the proliferation of false narratives in order to confuse and mislead large groups of people.

And just like Covid-19, the misinformation pandemic is particularly acute in the United States. What’s worse, America can’t seem to agree on the nature of the disease, its origins and how to stop its spread. The sooner we can acknowledge that we have fallen prey to this dangerous pandemic, the sooner we can begin to take steps on the path to recovery.

“There is no government alignment because it has been politicized by the Trump administration,” says Mounir Ibrahim, vice president of strategic initiatives at Truepic Inc., a startup that relies on Blockchain technology to verify photos and videos. “It is beyond comprehension that there is dramatic divergence (on) the nature of the threat of cyber/disinformation depending on the source: the White House, Congress, which party in Congress, intelligence community -- all have different narratives around this threat.”

Ibrahim, who has served previously at the U.S. Department of State, notes the U.S. response has been politicized to such an extent that “it will never be optimal because the whole force of government will not be invested in countering the threat.”

A cohesive, coordinated U.S. response that involves all the government agencies and social media platforms may be elusive for a while. But the vaccine for the misinformation virus is already available: credible, fact-based journalism and accessible education, especially understanding of history.

Let’s remember that the Covid-19 outbreak didn’t start the misinformation pandemic, it just amplified it.

“Just as the coronavirus itself, misinformation has spread far and wide, drowning out credible sources of information,” researchers Areeb Mian and Shujhat Khan wrote in BMC Medicine journal. “Over the last couple of months, posts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Center of Disease Control (CDC) have cumulatively only achieved several hundred thousand engagements, considerably eclipsed by hoax and conspiracy theory sites, which have amassed over 52 million.”

That was in March, just the start of the pandemic. It’s only gotten worse since then.

Months later, technology platforms that serve as propaganda dissemination vehicles have been slow to respond. Most are still struggling with how to monitor posts in real time without appearing partisan.

After all these years of false statements and distorted rhetoric, last week both Facebook and Twitter took steps to flag posts from presidential accounts spreading misinformation about children being immune to Covid-19. What’s incredible is that this was the very first time they were prompted to do so.

Meanwhile, foreign actors have been far from hesitant to exploit vulnerabilities of the social media platforms as well as political divisions in America.

Last week, the U.S. State Department issued a new report, which identifies Russia as a “leading threat,” ahead of China and Iran. Again, this is a report from the U.S. State Department, not a conspiracy corner of YouTube.

This report “detailed a Russian-backed misinformation cycle that spreads false information online through state officials and state-funded media reports, by infiltrating U.S. social media conversation, and leveraging a deceptive internet framework of websites.”

It listed five pillars of “Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem” and how these pillars work together. These pillars include “official government communications, state-funded global messaging, cultivation of proxy sources, weaponization of social media, and cyber-enabled disinformation.”

While the U.S. State Department report stated that Russia’s disinformation efforts are not “unopposed,” it’s unclear if their efforts will be sufficient in this election cycle or in the ongoing pandemic outbreak.

The report cited “a thriving counter-disinformation community comprised of governments, civil society, academia, the press, the private sector, and citizens around the world who refuse to tolerate these tactics is pushing back.”

It’s clear that Russian threat, even though it’s identified as the “leading” threat by U.S. intelligence agencies, is not high on White House priority list and is in fact avoided by White House officials, according to reporting by the New York Times.

"The U.S. government has a history of taking multiple years before taking any action as we have seen in the past,” says Matt Suiche, founder and CEO of Comae Technologies, in an interview. “We can expect a lot of talk and many years before any sanctions (are introduced).”

In the absence of immediate government action or widespread response from social media platforms, it’s going to take a collective effort to counter this particular pandemic.

So, what can we do in the meantime? 

1. Study history.

The Soviet apparatchiks that have set up the early systems of disinformation in the United States back in the 1920s could not imagine that one day the U.S. president will be their biggest ally, consistently playing into their hands. Trump is literally the Soviet propagandists’ wildest triumph, everything they could have wished for. 

These early disinformation playbooks, which are well documented, often “highlighted unattractive aspects of American culture, exaggerating real problems and imagining non-existent ones.” A lot of these playbooks have new tools, but the same principles behind them.

Understanding that these efforts are real is an important step in generating enough political pressure for a coordinated U.S. response.

But to really confront misinformation, we need to understand history and that Russian and other countries’ use of propaganda as a foreign policy tool did not start and will not end with Trump.

2. Educate policymakers when they’re not paying attention.

There isn’t a consensus among lawmakers even within the same parties on basic domestic issues like unemployment benefits, let alone broader geopolitical issues like foreign interference. Too many politicians are quick to dismiss reports and evidence from intelligence agencies or even embrace conspiracy theories.

There is plenty of evidence and factual information to act on for lawmakers. It’s our job as citizens to make sure these issues matter and are taken seriously, either in the form of political, economic sanctions or other measures that have weight. Foreign attacks on democratic institutions, continuous efforts to disrupt our processes and discourse cannot be swept under the rug, even in the middle of a pandemic and ongoing recession.

3. Support your local newsrooms. 

Donate, subscribe to local papers. Local news provide vital service to the communities especially in a pandemic and they have been facing increasing pressures.

You can donate to ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, News for Good or other organizations that support independent journalism. 

4. If you can, back media innovation. 

There are a range of new initiatives, venture capital-backed startups, academic projects and grassroots efforts to tackle misinformation. 

The media is not the enemy of the people, as some would have us believe. Due to mass layoffs, there is an increasingly small group of people working hard to help keep the government accountable and make sure credible information reaches everyone, despite any algorithms, slashed budgets or any other obstacles.

Documenting COVID-19 is one interesting open-records project from Columbia University's Brown Institute for Media Innovation, which is aiming to help local newsrooms track data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

There are dozens of others, and you can support them by following, subscribing to their newsletters and spreading the word about their work if not investing or donating directly.

5. Stop criticizing “mainstream media” broadly without specific examples. It does more harm than good. 

At some point everyone started blaming the “mainstream media” for all society’s ills. “Ah yeah, that mainstream media at it again!” 

What it does is feed directly into the strategy of misinformation actors, who are working hard to sow seeds of distrust in our fundamental institutions, including the press. 

By all means, let’s offer constructive criticism of specific instances and mistakes we see in various publications. Let’s hold everyone accountable. But criticizing an entire profession without examples is dangerous, it breeds distrust in a fundamental fabric of democracy and the press.

These efforts are far from a panacea, but they are a step in the right direction when our established institutions and old ways of consuming information are failing and spiraling out of control. 

In the war on foreign and domestic misinformation, science, facts and balanced discourse are not winning. And we are far from a consensus about the nature of the issue when it comes to the government officials, tech companies or the public at large.

The good news is that misinformation is a virus that is man-made. That means if we want to defeat it, we can.