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{{short description|Incorrect information with or without an intention to deceive}}{{distinguish|Disinformation|Misinformation effect}}Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information.WEB, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 19 August 2020, Misinformation,weblink 19 August 2020, 25 February 2019,weblink live, JOURNAL, Fetzer, James H., 2004-05-01, Information: Does it Have To Be True?,weblink Minds and Machines, 14, 2, 223–229, 10.1023/B:MIND.0000021682.61365.56, 31906034, 1572-8641, Misinformation can exist without specific malicious intent; disinformation is distinct in that it is deliberately deceptive and propagated.JOURNAL, Woolley, Samuel C., Howard, Philip N., 2016, Political Communication, Computational Propaganda, and Autonomous Agents,weblink live, International Journal of Communication, 10, 4882–4890,weblink 2019-10-22, 2019-10-22, BOOK, 10.1109/icict50521.2020.00076, An Exploration of Disinformation as a Cybersecurity Threat, 2020 3rd International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies (ICICT), 2020, Caramancion, Kevin Matthe, 440–444, 978-1-7281-7283-5, 218651389, WEB, Fisher, Natascha A. Karlova, Karen E., 2013-03-15, A social diffusion model of misinformation and disinformation for understanding human information behaviour,weblink 2023-05-11, informationr.net, 2023-05-11,weblink live, Misinformation can include inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or false information as well as selective or half-truths.JOURNAL, Diaz Ruiz, Carlos, 2023-10-30, Disinformation on digital media platforms: A market-shaping approach, New Media & Society, 10.1177/14614448231207644, 1461-4448, free, Much research on how to correct misinformation has focused on fact-checking. However, this can be challenging because the information deficit model does not necessarily apply well to beliefs in misinformation. Various researchers have also investigated what makes people susceptible to misinformation. People may be more prone to believe misinformation because they are emotionally connected to what they are listening to or are reading. Social media has made information readily available to society at anytime, and it connects vast groups of people along with their information at one time.{{sfn|Aral|2020}} Advances in technology have impacted the way people communicate information and the way misinformation is spread.JOURNAL, Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Seifert, Colleen M., Schwarz, Norbert, Cook, John, 2012, Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13, 3, 106–131, 10.1177/1529100612451018, 23484653, 26173286, 42633, free, Misinformation can influence people's beliefs about communities, politics, medicine, and more.{{sfn|Aral|2020}} The term also has the potential to be used to obfuscate legitimate speech and warp political discourses.The term came into wider recognition during the mid-1990s through the early 2020s, when its effects on public ideological influence began to be investigated. However, misinformation campaigns have existed for hundreds of years.JOURNAL, Bode, Leticia, Vraga, Emily, 23 June 2015, In Related News, That was Wrong: The Correction of Misinformation Through Related Stories Functionality in Social Media,weblink 2024-01-31, Journal of Communication, 65, 4, 619–638, 10.1111/jcom.12166, 142769329, 2022-11-12,weblink live, WEB, Posetti, Julie, Matthews, Alice, June 23, 2018, A Short Guide to the History of 'Fake News' and Disinformation: A New ICFJ Learning Module,weblink 2024-01-31, International Center for Journalists, 2019-02-25,weblink live,

Terminology

Misinformation is often used as an umbrella term to refer to many types of false information; more specifically it may refer to false information that is not shared to intentionally deceive or cause harm.WEB, Greason, Grace, 2018-07-06, Information Disorder: The Definitional Toolbox,weblink 2024-04-03, First Draft, Those who do not know that a piece of information is untrue, for instance, might disseminate it on social media in an effort to help.WEB, Marquez, Natalie, Research Guides: Misinformation – Get the Facts: What is Misinformation?,weblink 2023-03-16, guides.lib.uci.edu, 2023-03-16,weblink live, Disinformation is created or spread by a person or organization actively attempting to deceive their audience.JOURNAL, Fallis, Don, 2015, What Is Disinformation?,weblink Library Trends, 63, 3, 401–426, 10.1353/lib.2015.0014, 2142/89818, 13178809, 1559-0682, free, In addition to causing harm directly, disinformation can also cause indirect harm by undermining trust and obstructing the capacity to effectively communicate information with one another. Disinformation might consist of information that is partially or completely fabricated, taken out of context on purpose, exaggerated, or omits crucial details.WEB, What is disinformation?,weblink 2023-03-16, Die Bundesregierung informiert {{!, Startseite |language=de |archive-date=2023-03-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323150333weblink |url-status=live }} Disinformation can appear in any medium including text, audio, and imagery. The distinction between mis- and dis-information can be muddy because the intent of someone sharing false information can be difficult to discern.Malinformation is accurate information that is disseminated with malicious intent. This includes sensitive material that is disseminated in order to hurt someone or their reputation. Examples include doxing, revenge porn, and editing videos to remove important context or content.WEB, Foreign Influence Operations and Disinformation {{!, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA |url=https://www.cisa.gov/topics/election-security/foreign-influence-operations-and-disinformation#:~:text=Misinformation%20is%20false%2C%20but%20not,mislead%2C%20harm%2C%20or%20manipulate |website=www.cisa.gov}}Midinformation is information that was originally thought to be true but was later discovered not to be true, and often applies to emerging situations in which there is a lack of verifiable information or changing scientific understanding.WEB, Hanopol, Nica Rhiana, 2021-05-12, When 'midinformation' strikes, experts say here's what you can do,weblink 2024-04-03, VERA Files, For example, the scientific guidance around infant sleep positions has evolved over time,WEB, Safe to Sleep,weblink April 3, 2024, and these changes could be a source of confusion for new parents. Midinformation can also often be observed as news events are unfolding and questionable or unverified information fills information gaps. Even if later retracted, false information can continue to influence actions and memory.JOURNAL, Ecker, Ullrich K.H., Lewandowsky, Stephan, Cheung, Candy S.C., Maybery, Murray T., November 2015, He did it! She did it! No, she did not! Multiple causal explanations and the continued influence of misinformation,weblink live, Journal of Memory and Language, 85, 101–115, 10.1016/j.jml.2015.09.002,weblink 2022-12-07, 2022-11-01, Rumors are unverified information not attributed to any particular source and may be either true or false.WEB, May 21, 2023, Definition of RUMOR,weblink live,weblink February 4, 2022, February 4, 2022, www.merriam-webster.com, Definitions of these terms may vary between cultural contexts.

History

Early examples include the insults and smears spread among political rivals in Imperial and Renaissance Italy in the form of pasquinades.WEB,weblink The True History of Fake News, The New York Review of Books, 2019-02-24, 2017-02-13,weblink 2019-02-05, live, These are anonymous and witty verses named for the Pasquino piazza and talking statues in Rome. In pre-revolutionary France, "canards", or printed broadsides, sometimes included an engraving to convince readers to take them seriously.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}During the summer of 1587, continental Europe anxiously awaited news as the Spanish Armada sailed to fight the English. The Spanish postmaster and Spanish agents in Rome promoted reports of Spanish victory in hopes of convincing Pope Sixtus V to release his promised one million ducats upon landing of troops. In France, the Spanish and English ambassadors promoted contradictory narratives in the press, and a Spanish victory was incorrectly celebrated in Paris, Prague, and Venice. It was not until late August that reliable reports of the Spanish defeat arrived in major cities and were widely believed; the remains of the fleet returned home in the autumn.BOOK, The Invention of News, Andrew Pettegree, Yale University Press, 2015, 978-0-300-21276-1, 153–4, (File:Great-Moon-Hoax-1835-New-York-Sun-lithograph-298px.jpg|thumb|A lithograph from the first large scale spread of disinformation in America, the Great Moon Hoax)The first recorded large-scale disinformation campaign was the Great Moon Hoax, published in 1835 in the New York The Sun, in which a series of articles claimed to describe life on the Moon, "complete with illustrations of humanoid bat-creatures and bearded blue unicorns".WEB, A short guide to the history of 'fake news' and disinformation,weblink live,weblink 2019-02-25, 2019-02-24, International Center for Journalists, The challenges of mass-producing news on a short deadline can lead to factual errors and mistakes. An example of such is the Chicago Tribune{{'}}s infamous 1948 headline "Dewey Defeats Truman".WEB, Jones, Tim, 2020-10-31, Dewey defeats Truman: The most famous wrong call in electoral history,weblink 2024-04-03, Chicago Tribune, Social media platforms allow for easy spread of misinformation. Post-election surveys in 2016 suggest that many individuals who intake false information on social media believe them to be factual.JOURNAL, Allcott, Hunt, Gentzkow, Matthew, Yu, Chuan, April 2019, Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media, Research & Politics, 6, 2, 205316801984855, 10.1177/2053168019848554, 52291737, 2053-1680, free, 1809.05901, The specific reasons why misinformation spreads through social media so easily remain unknown. A 2018 study of Twitter determined that, compared to accurate information, false information spread significantly faster, further, deeper, and more broadly.JOURNAL, Vosoughi, Soroush, Roy, Deb, Aral, Sinan, 2018-03-09, The spread of true and false news online,weblink Science, 359, 6380, 1146–1151, 10.1126/science.aap9559, 29590045, 2018Sci...359.1146V, 0036-8075, Similarly, a research study of Facebook found that misinformation was more likely to be clicked on than factual information.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}File:Dewey Defeats Truman.jpg|thumb|Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanMoreover, the advent of the Internet has changed traditional ways that misinformation spreads.JOURNAL, Godfrey-Smith, Peter, December 1989, Misinformation,weblink Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 19, 4, 533–550, 10.1080/00455091.1989.10716781, 246637810, 0045-5091, During the 2016 United States presidential election, content from websites deemed 'untrustworthy' reached up to 40% of Americans, despite misinformation making up only 6% of overall news media.JOURNAL, West, Jevin D., Bergstrom, Carl T., 2021-04-13, Misinformation in and about science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118, 15, e1912444117, 10.1073/pnas.1912444117, 0027-8424, 8054004, 33837146, 2021PNAS..11812444W, free, Misinformation has been spread during many health crises.NEWS, Blum, Dani, Health Misinformation Is Evolving. Here's How to Spot It. - Experts offer tips for combating false medical claims in your own circles.,weblink March 16, 2024, The New York Times, live,weblink March 16, 2024, March 17, 2024, JOURNAL, Zeng, Jing, Chan, Chung-hong, 2021-01-01, A cross-national diagnosis of infodemics: comparing the topical and temporal features of misinformation around COVID-19 in China, India, the US, Germany and France,weblink Online Information Review, 45, 4, 709–728, 10.1108/OIR-09-2020-0417, 1468-4527, 234242942, 2023-05-11, 2024-02-14,weblink live, For example, misinformation about alternative treatments was spread during the Ebola outbreak in 2014–2016.JOURNAL, Fung, Isaac Chun-Hai, Fu, King-Wa, Chan, Chung-Hong, Chan, Benedict Shing Bun, Cheung, Chi-Ngai, Abraham, Thomas, Tse, Zion Tsz Ho, May 2016, Social Media's Initial Reaction to Information and Misinformation on Ebola, August 2014: Facts and Rumors, Public Health Reports, 131, 3, 461–473, 10.1177/003335491613100312, 0033-3549, 4869079, 27252566, JOURNAL, Oyeyemi, Sunday Oluwafemi, Gabarron, Elia, Wynn, Rolf, 2014-10-14, Ebola, Twitter, and misinformation: a dangerous combination?,weblink BMJ, 349, g6178, 10.1136/bmj.g6178, 1756-1833, 25315514, 731448, 2023-05-11, 2022-11-01,weblink live, free, During the COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of mis- and dis-information was exacerbated by a general lack of health literacy.JOURNAL, Swire-Thompson, Briony, Lazer, David, 2020-04-02, Public Health and Online Misinformation: Challenges and Recommendations, Annual Review of Public Health, 41, 1, 433–451, 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040119-094127, 31874069, 0163-7525, free,

Causes

Factors that contribute to beliefs in misinformation are an ongoing subject of study.JOURNAL, Jerit, Jennifer, Zhao, Yangzi, 2020-05-11, Political Misinformation, Annual Review of Political Science, 23, 1, 77–94, 10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-032814, 1094-2939, 212733536, free, According to Scheufele and Krause, misinformation belief has roots at the individual, group and societal levels.JOURNAL, Scheufele, Dietram, Krause, Nicole, April 16, 2019, Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 16, 7662–7669, 2019PNAS..116.7662S, 10.1073/pnas.1805871115, 6475373, 30642953, free, At the individual level, individuals have varying levels of skill in recognizing mis- or dis-information and may be predisposed to certain misinformation beliefs due to other personal beliefs, motivations, or emotions. At the group level, in-group bias and a tendency to associate with like-minded or similar people can produce echo chambers and information silos that can create and reinforce misinformation beliefs.JOURNAL, Törnberg, Petter, 2018-09-20, Bauch, Chris T., Echo chambers and viral misinformation: Modeling fake news as complex contagion, PLOS ONE, 13, 9, e0203958, 10.1371/journal.pone.0203958, free, 1932-6203, 6147442, 30235239, 2018PLoSO..1303958T, At the societal level, public figures like politicians and celebrities can disproportionately influence public opinions, as can mass media outlets.WEB, Literature Review: Echo chambers, filter bubbles and polarization,weblink live,weblink 19 January 2022, 21 February 2022, In addition, societal trends like political polarization, economic inequalities, declining trust in science, and changing perceptions of authority contribute to the impact of misinformation.Historically, people have relied on journalists and other information professionals to relay facts.JOURNAL, Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet, The Electronic Library, 1 December 2002, 20, 6, 521, 10.1108/el.2002.20.6.521.7, As the number and variety of information sources has increased, it has become more challenging for the general public to assess their credibility.WEB, Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds, NPR,weblink April 4, 2024, This growth of consumer choice when it comes to news media allows the consumer to choose a news source that may align with their biases, which consequently increases the likelihood that they are misinformed. 47% of Americans reported social media as their main news source in 2017 as opposed to traditional news sources.WEB, Shearer, Elisa, Gottfried, Jeffrey, 2017-09-07, News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017,weblink live,weblink 2021-03-16, 2021-03-28, Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, Polling shows that Americans trust mass media at record-low rates,WEB, Inc, Gallup, 2023-10-19, Media Confidence in U.S. Matches 2016 Record Low,weblink 2024-05-16, Gallup.com, en, and that US young adults place similar levels of trust in information from social media and from national news organizations.WEB, Gottfried, Jacob Liedke and Jeffrey, 2022-10-27, U.S. adults under 30 now trust information from social media almost as much as from national news outlets,weblink 2024-05-16, Pew Research Center, en-US, The pace of the 24 hour news cycle does not always allow for adequate fact-checking, potentially leading to the spread of misinformation.BOOK, Croteau, David, Media Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences, Hoynes, William, Milan, Stefania, 285–321, Media Technology, March 21, 2013,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130102172415weblink">weblink January 2, 2013, live, Further, the distinction between opinion and reporting can be unclear to viewers or readers.WEB, Sumida, Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthel and Nami, 2018-06-18, Distinguishing Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News,weblink 2024-05-16, Pew Research Center, en-US, WEB, Journalists know news and opinion are separate, but readers often can’t tell the difference,weblink 2024-05-16, Nieman Lab, Sources of misinformation can appear highly convincing and similar to trusted legitimate sources.WEB, University, © Stanford, Stanford, California 94305, 2016-11-21, Stanford researchers find students have trouble judging the credibility of information online,weblink 2024-04-03, Stanford Graduate School of Education, For example, misinformation cited with hyperlinks has been found to increase readers' trust. Trust is even higher when these hyperlinks are to scientific journals, and higher still when readers do not click on the sources to investigate for themselves.JOURNAL, Verma, Nitin, Fleischmann, Kenneth R., Koltai, Kolina S., January 2017, Human values and trust in scientific journals, the mainstream media and fake news, Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 54, 1, 426–435, 10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401046, 51958978, {{Citation |last1=Sehgal |first1=Vibhor |title=Mutual Hyperlinking Among Misinformation Peddlers |date=2021-04-20 |arxiv=2104.11694 |last2=Peshin |first2=Ankit |last3=Afroz |first3=Sadia |last4=Farid |first4=Hany}} Research has also shown that the presence of relevant images alongside incorrect statements increases both their believability and shareability, even if the images do not actually provide evidence for the statements.JOURNAL, Newman, Eryn J., Garry, Maryanne, Bernstein, Daniel M., Kantner, Justin, Lindsay, D. Stephen, October 2012, Nonprobative photographs (or words) inflate truthiness,weblink Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 5, 969–974, 10.3758/s13423-012-0292-0, 1531-5320, 22869334, JOURNAL, Sundar, S Shyam, Molina, Maria D, Cho, Eugene, 2021-11-12, Seeing Is Believing: Is Video Modality More Powerful in Spreading Fake News via Online Messaging Apps?,weblink Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 26, 6, 301–319, 10.1093/jcmc/zmab010, 1083-6101, free, For example, a false statement about macadamia nuts accompanied by an image of a bowl of macadamia nuts tends to be rated as more believable than the same statement without an image.The translation of scientific research into popular reporting can also lead to confusion if it flattens nuance, sensationalizes the findings, or places too much emphasis on weaker levels of evidence. For instance, researchers have found that newspapers are more likely than scientific journals to cover observational studies and studies with weaker methodologies.JOURNAL, Selvaraj, Senthil, Borkar, Durga S., Prasad, Vinay, 2014-01-17, Media Coverage of Medical Journals: Do the Best Articles Make the News?, PLOS ONE, 9, 1, e85355, 10.1371/journal.pone.0085355, free, 1932-6203, 3894978, 24465543, 2014PLoSO...985355S, Dramatic headlines may gain readers' attention, but they do not always accurately reflect scientific findings.WEB, How to spot misleading science reporting – QB3 Berkeley,weblink 2024-04-12, qb3.berkeley.edu, Human cognitive tendencies can also be a contributing factor to misinformation belief. One study found that an individual's recollection of political events could be altered when presented with misinformation about the event, even when primed to identify warning signs of misinformation.JOURNAL, Freeze, Melanie, Baumgartner, Mary, Bruno, Peter, Gunderson, Jacob R., Olin, Joshua, Ross, Morgan Quinn, Szafran, Justine, 2021-12-01, Fake Claims of Fake News: Political Misinformation, Warnings, and the Tainted Truth Effect,weblink Political Behavior, en, 43, 4, 1433–1465, 10.1007/s11109-020-09597-3, 1573-6687, Misinformation may also be appealing by seeming novel or incorporating existing steoreotypes.NEWS, Healy, Melissa, 8 February 2020, Misinformation about the coronavirus abounds, but correcting it can backfire,weblink Los Angeles Times,

Identification

Research has yielded a number of strategies that can be employed to identify misinformation, many of which share common features. According to Anne Mintz, editor of Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet, one of the simplest ways to determine whether information is factual is to use common sense.WEB, Mintz, Anne, The Misinformation Superhighway?,weblink PBS, 26 February 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130402040621weblink">weblink 2 April 2013, live, Mintz advises that the reader check whether the information makes sense and whether the source or sharers of the information might be biased or have an agenda. However, because emotions and preconceptions heavily impact belief, this is not always a reliable strategy.JOURNAL, Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Lewandowsky, Stephan, Cook, John, Schmid, Philipp, Fazio, Lisa K., Brashier, Nadia, Kendeou, Panayiota, Vraga, Emily K., Amazeen, Michelle A., January 2022, The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction,weblink Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, 1, 13–29, 10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y, 2731-0574, 1983/889ddb0f-0d44-44f4-a54f-57c260ae4917, free, It can be difficult to undo the effects of misinformation once individuals believe it to be true.JOURNAL, Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Lewandowsky, Stephan, Chadwick, Matthew, 2020-04-22, Can Corrections Spread Misinformation to New Audiences? Testing for the Elusive Familiarity Backfire Effect,weblink live, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5, 1, 41, 10.31219/osf.io/et4p3, 7447737, 32844338,weblink 2020-06-17, 2020-06-17, 1983/0d5feec2-5878-4af6-b5c7-fbbd398dd4c4, Individuals may desire to reach a certain conclusion, causing them to accept information that supports that conclusion, and are more likely to retain and share information if it emotionally resonates with them.JOURNAL, Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Seifert, Colleen M., Schwarz, Norbert, Cook, John, 2012, Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13, 3, 106–131, 10.1177/1529100612451018, 23484653, 26173286, 42633, free, The SIFT Method, also called the Four Moves, is one commonly taught method of distinguishing between reliable and unreliable information.WEB, 2019-06-19, SIFT (The Four Moves),weblink 2024-04-12, Hapgood, This method instructs readers to first Stop and begin to ask themselves about what they are reading or viewing - do they know the source and if it is reliable? Second, readers should Investigate the source. What is the source's relevant expertise and do they have an agenda? Third, a reader should Find better coverage and look for reliable coverage on the claim at hand to understand if there is a consensus around the issue. Finally, a reader should Trace claims, quotes, or media to their original context: has important information been omitted, or is the original source questionable?Visual misinformation presents particular challenges, but there are some effective strategies for identification.JOURNAL, Cowles, Kelsey, Miller, Rebekah, Suppok, Rachel, 2024-01-02, When Seeing Isn't Believing: Navigating Visual Health Misinformation through Library Instruction,weblink Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 43, 1, 44–58, 10.1080/02763869.2024.2290963, 38237023, 0276-3869, Misleading graphs and charts can be identified through careful examination of the data presentation; for example, truncated axes or poor color choices can cause confusion.WEB, Grootendorst, Maarten, 2021-03-23, Misleading Graphs,weblink 2024-04-12, Maarten Grootendorst, Reverse image searching can reveal whether images have been taken out of their original context.JOURNAL, Qian, Sijia, Shen, Cuihua, Zhang, Jingwen, 2022-11-04, Fighting cheapfakes: using a digital media literacy intervention to motivate reverse search of out-of-context visual misinformation, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28, 1, 10.1093/jcmc/zmac024, 1083-6101, free, There are currently some somewhat reliable ways to identify AI-generated imagery,JOURNAL, Groh, Matthew, Epstein, Ziv, Firestone, Chaz, Picard, Rosalind, 2022-01-05, Deepfake detection by human crowds, machines, and machine-informed crowds, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119, 1, 10.1073/pnas.2110013119, free, 0027-8424, 8740705, 34969837, 2105.06496, 2022PNAS..11910013G, WEB, Bond, Shannon, AI-generated images are everywhere. Here's how to spot them, NPR,weblink April 12, 2024, but it is likely that this will become more difficult to identify as the technology advances.NEWS, Hern, Alex, 2024-04-08, 'Time is running out': can a future of undetectable deepfakes be avoided?,weblink 2024-04-12, The Guardian, 0261-3077, NEWS, Verma, Pranshu, AI Can Draw Hands Now, The Washington Post,weblink A person's formal education level and media literacy do correlate with their ability to recognize misinformation.JOURNAL, Khan, M. Laeeq, Idris, Ika Karlina, 2 December 2019, Recognise misinformation and verify before sharing: a reasoned action and information literacy perspective, Behaviour & Information Technology, 38, 12, 1194–1212, 10.1080/0144929x.2019.1578828, 86681742, JOURNAL, Lazer, David M. J., Baum, Matthew A., Benkler, Yochai, Berinsky, Adam J., Greenhill, Kelly M., Menczer, Filippo, Metzger, Miriam J., Nyhan, Brendan, Pennycook, Gordon, Rothschild, David, Schudson, Michael, Sloman, Steven A., Sunstein, Cass R., Thorson, Emily A., Watts, Duncan J., 2018, The science of fake news, Science, 359, 6380, 1094–1096, 2307.07903, 2018Sci...359.1094L, 10.1126/science.aao2998, 29590025, 4410672, Zittrain, Jonathan L., People who are familiar with a topic, the processes of researching and presenting information, or have critical evaluation skills are more likely to correctly identify misinformation. However, these are not always direct relationships. Higher overall literacy does not always lead to improved ability to detect misinformationJOURNAL, Vraga, Emily K., Bode, Leticia, December 2017, Leveraging institutions, educators, and networks to correct misinformation: A commentary on Lewandosky, Ecker, and Cook., Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6, 4, 382–388, 10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.09.008, Context clues can also significantly impact people's ability to detect misinformation.BOOK, Caramancion, Kevin Matthe, 2020 IEEE International IOT, Electronics and Mechatronics Conference (IEMTRONICS), 2020, 978-1-7281-9615-2, 1–6, Understanding the Impact of Contextual Clues in Misinformation Detection, 10.1109/IEMTRONICS51293.2020.9216394, 222297695, Martin Libicki, author of Conquest In Cyberspace: National Security and Information Warfare,BOOK, Libicki, Martin, Conquest in Cyberspace: National Security and Information Warfare,weblink limited, 2007, Cambridge University Press, New York, 978-0-521-87160-0, 51–55, notes that readers should aim to be skeptical but not cynical. Readers should not be gullible, believing everything they read without question, but also should not be paranoid that everything they see or read is false.

Countermeasures{{anchor|Countering misinformation}}

{{see also|Conspiracy theories#Interventions}}Factors that contribute to the effectiveness of a corrective message include an individual's mental model or worldview, repeated exposure to the misinformation, time between misinformation and correction, credibility of the sources, and relative coherency of the misinformation and corrective message. Corrective messages will be more effective when they are coherent and/or consistent with the audience's worldview. They will be less effective when misinformation is believed to come from a credible source, is repeated prior to correction (even if the repetition occurs in the process of debunking), and/or when there is a time lag between the misinformation exposure and corrective message. Additionally, corrective messages delivered by the original source of the misinformation tend to be more effective.JOURNAL, Walter, Nathan, Tukachinsky, Riva, A Meta-Analytic Examination of the Continued Influence of Misinformation in the Face of Correction: How Powerful Is It, Why Does It Happen, and How to Stop It?, Communication Research, March 2020, 47, 2, 155–177, 10.1177/0093650219854600, 197731687,weblink 2022-11-01, 2022-12-07,weblink live,

Fact-checking and debunking

Websites have been created to help people to discern fact from fiction. For example, the site FactCheck.org aims to fact check the media, especially viral political stories. The site also includes a forum where people can openly ask questions about the information.WEB, Ask FactCheck,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160331063044weblink">weblink 2016-03-31, 2016-03-31, www.factcheck.org, Similar sites allow individuals to copy and paste misinformation into a search engine and the site will investigate it.BOOK, Fernandez, Miriam, Companion of the Web Conference 2018 on the Web Conference 2018 – WWW '18, Alani, Harith, ACM Press, 2018, 978-1-4503-5640-4, 595–602, Online Misinformation, 10.1145/3184558.3188730, 13799324, Some sites exist to address misinformation about specific topics, such as climate change misinformation. DeSmog, formerly The DeSmogBlog, publishes factually accurate information in order to counter the well-funded disinformation campaigns spread by motivated deniers of climate change. Healthfeedback.org focuses on evaluating health claims in the media and providing an evidence-based analysis of their veracity.WEB, About - Science Feedback,weblink 2024-04-12, science.feedback.org/, Flagging or eliminating false statements in media using algorithmic fact checkers is becoming an increasingly common tactic to fight misinformation. Google and many social media platforms have added automatic fact-checking programs to their sites and created the option for users to flag information that they think is false. Google provides supplemental information pointing to fact-checking websites in search results for controversial topics. On Facebook, algorithms may warn users if what they are about to share is likely false.JOURNAL, Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Cook, John, Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the 'post-truth' era, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, December 2017, 6, 4, 353–369, 10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008, 1983/1b4da4f3-009d-4287-8e45-a0a1d7b688f7, 149003083,weblink 2022-11-01, 2023-01-18,weblink live, In some cases social media platforms' efforts to curb the spread of misinformation has resulted in controversy, drawing criticism from people who see these efforts as constructing a barrier to their right to expression.WEB, Nott, By Lata, 2022-08-03, Free Speech on Social Media: The Complete Guide,weblink 2024-04-12, Freedom Forum,

One-on-one correction

Within the context of personal interactions, some strategies for debunking have the potential to be effective. Simply delivering facts is frequently ineffective because misinformation belief is often not the result of a deficit of accurate information, although individuals may be more likely to change their beliefs in response to information shared by someone with whom they have close social ties, like a friend or family member.JOURNAL, Pasquetto, Irene V., Jahani, Eaman, Atreja, Shubham, Baum, Matthew, 2022-04-07, Social Debunking of Misinformation on WhatsApp: The Case for Strong and In-group Ties,weblink Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6, CSCW1, 117:1–117:35, 10.1145/3512964, More effective strategies focus on instilling doubt and encouraging people to examine the roots of their beliefs.NEWS, 2020-12-21, How should you talk to friends and relatives who believe conspiracy theories?,weblink 2024-04-22, In these situations, tone can also play a role: expressing empathy and understanding can keep communication channels open. It is important to remember that beliefs are driven not just by facts but by emotion, worldview, intuition, social pressure, and many other factors.

Social correction

Fact-checking and debunking can be done in one-on-one interactions, but when this occurs on social media it is likely that other people may encounter and read the interaction, potentially learning new information from it or examining their own beliefs. This type of correction has been termed social correction.JOURNAL, Vraga, Emily K., Bode, Leticia, October 2020, Correction as a Solution for Health Misinformation on Social Media, American Journal of Public Health, 110, S3, S278–S280, 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305916, 0090-0036, 7532323, 33001724, Researchers have identified three ways to increase the efficacy of these social corrections for observers. First, corrections should include a link to a credible source of relevant information, like an expert organization. Second, the correct information should be repeated, for example at the beginning and end of the comment or response. Third, an alternative explanation should be offered. An effective social correction in response to a statement that chili peppers can cure COVID-19 might look something like: “Hot peppers in your food, though very tasty, cannot prevent or cure COVID-19. The best way to protect yourself against the new coronavirus is to keep at least 1 meter away from others and to wash your hands frequently and thoroughly. Adding peppers to your soup won’t prevent or cure COVID-19. Learn more from the WHO."WEB, COVID-19 Mythbusters – World Health Organization,weblink 2024-04-22, www.who.int, Interestingly, while the tone of the correction may impact how the target of the correction receives the message and can increase engagement with a message,JOURNAL, MacKay, Melissa, Cimino, Andrea, Yousefinaghani, Samira, McWhirter, Jennifer E., Dara, Rozita, Papadopoulos, Andrew, 2022-06-06, Canadian COVID-19 Crisis Communication on Twitter: Mixed Methods Research Examining Tweets from Government, Politicians, and Public Health for Crisis Communication Guiding Principles and Tweet Engagement, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19, 11, 6954, 10.3390/ijerph19116954, free, 1660-4601, 9180105, 35682537, it is less likely to affect how others seeing the correction perceive its accuracy.JOURNAL, Bode, Leticia, Vraga, Emily K., Tully, Melissa, 2020-06-11, Do the right thing: Tone may not affect correction of misinformation on social media,weblink Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 10.37016/mr-2020-026, free, It is important to note that, while social correction has the potential to reach a wider audience with correct information, it can also potentially amplify an original post containing misinformation.WEB, Health Misinformation — Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General,weblink 2024-04-22, www.hhs.gov,

Prebunking

Unfortunately, misinformation typically spreads more readily than fact-checking.WEB, Smith, Rory, 2020-12-18, The "broadcast" model no longer works in an era of disinformation,weblink 2024-04-12, First Draft, Further, even if misinformation is corrected, that does not mean it is forgotten or does not influence people's thoughts. Another approach, called prebunking, aims to "inoculate" against misinformation by showing people examples of misinformation and how it works before they encounter it.WEB, Garcia, Laura, 2021-06-29, A guide to prebunking: a promising way to inoculate against misinformation,weblink 2024-04-12, First Draft, JOURNAL, Cook, John, Ellerton, Peter, Kinkead, David, 1 February 2018, Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors, Environmental Research Letters, 13, 2, 024018, 2018ERL....13b4018C, 10.1088/1748-9326/aaa49f, 149353744, free, While prebunking can involve fact-based correction, it focuses more on identifying common logical fallacies and tactics used to spread misinformation as well as common misinformation sources. Research about the efficacy of prebunking has shown promising results.JOURNAL, Roozenbeek, Jon, van der Linden, Sander, 2019-06-25, Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation,weblink Palgrave Communications, 5, 1, 1–10, 10.1057/s41599-019-0279-9, 2055-1045,

Other interventions

A report by the Royal Society in the UK lists additional potential or proposed countermeasures:

• Automated detection systems (e.g. to flag or add context and resources to content)
• Provenance enhancing technology (i.e. better enabling people to determine the veracity of a claim, image, or video)
• APIs for research (i.e. for usage to detect, understand, and counter misinformation)
• Active bystanders (e.g. corrective commenting)
• Community moderation (usually of unpaid and untrained, often independent, volunteers)
• Anti-virals (e.g. limiting the number of times a message can be forwarded in privacy-respecting encrypted chats)
• Collective intelligence (examples being Wikipedia where multiple editors refine encyclopedic articles, and question-and-answer sites where outputs are also evaluated by others similar to peer-review)
• Trustworthy institutions and data
• Media literacy (increasing citizens' ability to use ICTs to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, an essential skill for citizens of all ages)
  • Media literacy is taught in Estonian public schools – from kindergarten through to high school – since 2010 and "accepted 'as important as [...] writing or reading'"NEWS, Yee, Amy, The country inoculating against disinformation,weblink 21 February 2022, BBC, 20 February 2022,weblink live,
  • New Jersey mandated K-12 students to learn information literacyWEB, Sitrin, Carly, New Jersey becomes first state to mandate K-12 students learn information literacy,weblink Politico, 5 January 2023, 9 January 2023, 9 January 2023,weblink live,
  • "Inoculation" via educational videos shown to adults is being exploredJOURNAL, Roozenbeek, Jon, van der Linden, Sander, Goldberg, Beth, Rathje, Steve, Lewandowsky, Stephan, Psychological inoculation improves resilience against misinformation on social media, Science Advances, 26 August 2022, 8, 34, eabo6254, 10.1126/sciadv.abo6254, 36001675, 9401631, 2022SciA....8O6254R, 2375-2548,

Broadly described, the report recommends building resilience to scientific misinformation and a healthy online information environment and not having offending content removed. It cautions that censorship could e.g. drive misinformation and associated communities "to harder-to-address corners of the internet".WEB, Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online, The Royal Society,weblink 12 February 2022, 12 February 2022,weblink live, Online misinformation about climate change can be counteracted through different measures at different stages.JOURNAL, Treen, Kathie M. d'I., Williams, Hywel T. P., O'Neill, Saffron J., Online misinformation about climate change, WIREs Climate Change, September 2020, 11, 5, 10.1002/wcc.665, 221879878, free, 2020WIRCC..11E.665T, Prior to misinformation exposure, education and "inoculation" are proposed. Technological solutions, such as early detection of bots and ranking and selection algorithms are suggested as ongoing mechanisms. Post misinformation, corrective and collaborator messaging can be used to counter climate change misinformation. Incorporating fines and similar consequences has also been suggested.The International Panel on the Information Environment was launched in 2023 as a consortium of over 250 scientists working to develop effective countermeasures to misinformation and other problems created by perverse incentives in organizations disseminating information via the Internet.Q, Q124711722, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, There also is research and development of platform-built-in as well browser-integrated (currently in the form of addons) misinformation mitigation.NEWS, Zewe, Adam, Empowering social media users to assess content helps fight misinformation,weblink 18 December 2022, Massachusetts Institute of Technology via techxplore.com, 18 December 2022,weblink live, JOURNAL, Jahanbakhsh, Farnaz, Zhang, Amy X., Karger, David R., Leveraging Structured Trusted-Peer Assessments to Combat Misinformation, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 11 November 2022, 6, CSCW2, 524:1–524:40, 10.1145/3555637, free, 1721.1/147638, free, WEB, Elliott, Matt, Fake news spotter: How to enable Microsoft Edge's NewsGuard,weblink CNET, 9 January 2023, 9 January 2023,weblink live, WEB, 12 Browser Extensions to Help You Detect and Avoid Fake News,weblink The Trusted Web, 9 January 2023, 18 March 2021, 9 January 2023,weblink live, This includes quality/neutrality/reliability ratings for news sources. Wikipedia's perennial sources page categorizes many large news sources by reliability.NEWS, Darcy, Oliver, Wikipedia administrators caution editors about using Fox News as source on 'contentious' claims {{!, CNN Business |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/24/media/wikipedia-fox-news-reliable-sources/index.html |access-date=9 January 2023 |work=CNN |date=24 July 2020 |archive-date=20 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120115036weblink |url-status=live }} Researchers have also demonstrated the feasibility of falsity scores for popular and official figures by developing such for over 800 contemporary elites on Twitter as well as associated exposure scores.NEWS, New MIT Sloan research measures exposure to misinformation from political elites on Twitter,weblink 18 December 2022, AP NEWS, 29 November 2022, 18 December 2022,weblink live, JOURNAL, Mosleh, Mohsen, Rand, David G., Measuring exposure to misinformation from political elites on Twitter, Nature Communications, 21 November 2022, 13, 1, 7144, 10.1038/s41467-022-34769-6, 36414634, 9681735, 2022NatCo..13.7144M, 2041-1723, free, Strategies that may be more effective for lasting correction of false beliefs include focusing on intermediaries (such as convincing activists or politicians who are credible to the people who hold false beliefs, or promoting intermediaries who have the same identities or worldviews as the intended audience), minimizing the association of misinformation with political or group identities (such as providing corrections from nonpartisan experts, or avoiding false balance based on partisanship in news coverage), and emphasizing corrections that are hard for people to avoid or deny (such as providing information that the economy is unusually strong or weak, or describing the increased occurrence of extreme weather events in response to climate change denial).JOURNAL, Nyhan B, 2021, Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of political misperceptions., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 118, 15, 2021PNAS..11812440N, 10.1073/pnas.1912440117, 8053951, 33837144, free,

Limitations

{{see also|Illusory truth effect}}Sometimes correcting misinformation requires repeating it, which could paradoxically reinforce misinformation belief because repetition facilitates memory recall and belief.JOURNAL, Hasher, Lynn, Goldstein, David, Toppino, Thomas, 1977-02, Frequency and the conference of referential validity,weblink Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, en, 16, 1, 107–112, 10.1016/S0022-5371(77)80012-1, WEB, Illusory Truth Effect {{!, Psychology Today |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/illusory-truth-effect |access-date=2024-05-16 |website=www.psychologytoday.com |language=en-US}} Even successful corrections may not be persistent, particularly if people are re-exposed to misinformation.Pointing out that there is misinformation can also make people overly skeptical, even of facts with firm scientific grounding.{{Citation |last=Chesney |first=Robert |title=Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security |date=2018-07-14 |type=SSRN Scholarly Paper |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3213954 |access-date=2024-05-16 |place=Rochester, NY |language=en |doi=10.2139/ssrn.3213954 |last2=Citron |first2=Danielle Keats}}

Online misinformation{{anchor|Social_media_and_misinformation}}

{{further|Medical misinformation|Health misinformation|Health information on the Internet#Social media}}In recent years, the proliferation of misinformation online has drawn widespread attention.JOURNAL, Acerbi, Alberto, 2019-02-12, Cognitive attraction and online misinformation, Palgrave Communications, 5, 1, 10.1057/s41599-019-0224-y, 257089832, 2055-1045, free, 11572/357769, free, More than half of the world's population had access to the Internet in the beginning of 2018. Digital and social media can contribute to the spread of misinformation – for instance, when users share information without first checking the legitimacy of the information they have found. People are more likely to encounter online information based on personalized algorithms. Google, Facebook and Yahoo News all generate newsfeeds based on the information they know about our devices, our location, and our online interests.Although two people can search for the same thing at the same time, they are very likely to get different results based on what that platform deems relevant to their interests, fact or false. Various social media platforms have recently been criticized for encouraging the spread of false information, such as hoaxes, false news, and mistruths. It is responsible with influencing people's attitudes and judgment during significant events by disseminating widely believed misinformation. Furthermore, online misinformation can occur in numerous ways, including rumors, urban legends, factoids, etc.BOOK, Almaliki, Malik, 2019-04-06, Online Misinformation Spread, Proceedings of the 2019 3rd International Conference on Information System and Data Mining, 171–178, New York, ACM, 10.1145/3325917.3325938, 978-1-4503-6635-9, 190232270, However, the underlying factor is that it contains misleading or inaccurate information.Moreover, users of social media platforms may experience intensely negative feelings, perplexity, and worry as a result of the spread of false information. According to a recent study, one in ten Americans has gone through mental or emotional stress as a result of misleading information posted online. Spreading false information can also seriously impede the effective and efficient use of the information available on social media. An emerging trend in the online information environment is "a shift away from public discourse to private, more ephemeral, messaging", which is a challenge to counter misinformation.BOOK, The online information environment: Understanding how the internet shapes people's engagement with scientific information, January 2022, 978-1-78252-567-7, The Royal Society,weblink 21 February 2022, 11 February 2022,weblink live,

On social media

Pew Research reports shared that approximately one in four American adults admitted to sharing misinformation on their social media platforms.WEB, Holcomb, Michael Barthel, Amy Mitchell and Jesse, 2016-12-15, Many Americans Believe Fake News Is Sowing Confusion,weblink 2024-04-03, Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, In the Information Age, social networking sites have become a notable agent for the spread of misinformation, fake news, and propaganda.BOOK, 10.1007/978-3-030-23491-1_14, The Growing Role of Social Media in International Health Security: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Global Health Security, Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications, 2020, Stawicki, Stanislaw P., Firstenberg, Michael S., Papadimos, Thomas J., 341–357, 978-3-030-23490-4, 212995901, JOURNAL, Vosoughi, Soroush, Roy, Deb, Aral, Sinan, The spread of true and false news online, Science, 9 March 2018, 359, 6380, 1146–1151, 10.1126/science.aap9559, 29590045, 2018Sci...359.1146V, 4549072,weblink 21 August 2019, 29 April 2019,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20190429073158weblink">weblink dead, JOURNAL, Tucker, Joshua A., Guess, Andrew, Barbera, Pablo, Vaccari, Cristian, Siegel, Alexandra, Sanovich, Sergey, Stukal, Denis, Nyhan, Brendan, Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature,weblink live, Hewlett Foundation White Paper,weblink 2019-03-06, 2019-03-05, BOOK, 10.1145/3308560.3316738, A Study of Misinformation in WhatsApp groups with a focus on the Brazilian Presidential Elections, Companion Proceedings of the 2019 World Wide Web Conference, 2019, Machado, Caio, Kira, Beatriz, Narayanan, Vidya, Kollanyi, Bence, Howard, Philip, 1013–1019, 978-1-4503-6675-5, 153314118, Social media sites have changed their algorithms to prevent the spread of fake news but the problem still exists.Image posts are the biggest spread of misinformation on social media, a fact which is grossly unrepresented in research. This leads to a "yawning gap of knowledge" as there is a collective ignorance on how harmful image-based posts are compared to other types of misinformation.WEB, Hindman, Matthew, Davis, Trevor, Yang, Yunkang, 2023-06-30, Visual misinformation is widespread on Facebook – and often undercounted by researchers,weblink 2024-01-25, The Conversation, 2024-01-25,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20240125142416weblink">weblink live,

Spread

Social media platforms allow for easy spread of misinformation.JOURNAL, Allcott, Hunt, Gentzkow, Matthew, Yu, Chuan, Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media, Research & Politics, April 2019, 6, 2, 205316801984855, 10.1177/2053168019848554, 52291737, free, 1809.05901, The specific reasons why misinformation spreads through social media so easily remain unknown.JOURNAL, Chen, Xinran, Sin, Sei-Ching Joanna, Theng, Yin-Leng, Lee, Chei Sian, September 2015, Why Students Share Misinformation on Social Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-level Differences, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41, 5, 583–592, 10.1016/j.acalib.2015.07.003, 141523357, Agent-based models and other computational models have been used by researchers to explain how false beliefs spread through networks. Epistemic network analysis is one example of a computational method for evaluating connections in data shared in a social media network or similar network.JOURNAL, Shaffer, David Williamson, Collier, Wesley, Ruis, A. R., A tutorial on epistemic network analysis: Analysing the structural connections in cognitive, social and interaction data, Journal of Learning Analytics, 2016, 3, 3, 9–45, {{ERIC, EJ1126800, |doi=10.18608/jla.2016.33.3 |doi-access=free }}Researchers fear that misinformation in social media is "becoming unstoppable." It has also been observed that misinformation and disinformation reappear on social media sites.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}Misinformation spread by bots has been difficult for social media platforms to address.NEWS, Milman, Oliver, 2020-02-21, Revealed: quarter of all tweets about climate crisis produced by bots, The Guardian,weblink live, 2020-02-23,weblink 2020-02-22, Sites such as Facebook have algorithms that have been proven to further the spread of misinformation in which how content is spread among subgroups.WEB, Facebook's Design Makes It Unable to Control Misinformation {{!, GW Today {{!}} The George Washington University |url=https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/facebooks-design-makes-it-unable-control-misinformation |access-date=2024-03-04 |website=GW Today }}

Social causes and echo chambers

Spontaneous spread of misinformation on social media usually occurs from users sharing posts from friends or mutually-followed pages. These posts are often shared from someone the sharer believes they can trust. Misinformation introduced through a social format influences individuals drastically more than misinformation delivered non-socially.JOURNAL, Gabbert, Fiona, Memon, Amina, Allan, Kevin, Wright, Daniel B., Say it to my face: Examining the effects of socially encountered misinformation, Legal and Criminological Psychology, September 2004, 9, 2, 215–227, 10.1348/1355325041719428, 144823646,weblink People are inclined to follow or support like-minded individuals, creating echo chambers and filter bubbles. Untruths or general agreement within isolated social clusters are difficult to counter. Some argue this causes an absence of a collective reality.WEB,weblink Study: Breitbart-led rightwing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda, Benkler, Y., 2017, 8 June 2018,weblink 4 June 2018, live, Research has also shown that viral misinformation may spread more widely as a result of echo chambers, as the echo chambers provide an initial seed which can fuel broader viral diffusion.JOURNAL, Törnberg, P., 2018, Echo chambers and viral misinformation: Modeling fake news as complex contagion, PLOS ONE, 13, 9, e0203958, 10.1371/journal.pone.0203958, free, 30235239, 6147442, 2018PLoSO..1303958T, Misinformation might be created and spread with malicious intent for reasons such as causing anxiety or deceiving audiences.BOOK, Thai, My T.,weblink Big Data in Complex and Social Networks, Wu, Weili, Xiong, Hui, 2016-12-01, CRC Press, 978-1-315-39669-9, Rumors created with or without malicious intent may be unknowingly shared by users.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} People may know what the scientific community has proved as a fact, and still refuse to accept it as such.JOURNAL, Scheufele, Dietram A., Krause, Nicole M., Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 April 2019, 116, 16, 7662–7669, 10.1073/pnas.1805871115, 30642953, 6475373, 2019PNAS..116.7662S, free,

Lack of regulation

Misinformation on social media spreads quickly in comparison to traditional media because of the lack of regulation and examination required before posting.BOOK, Caramancion, Kevin Matthe, Computational Data and Social Networks, 2021, 978-3-030-91433-2, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 13116, 319–329, The Role of Information Organization and Knowledge Structuring in Combatting Misinformation: A Literary Analysis, 10.1007/978-3-030-91434-9_28, 244890285, Social media sites provide users with the capability to spread information quickly to other users without requiring the permission of a gatekeeper such as an editor, who might otherwise require confirmation of the truth before allowing publication.BOOK, Starbird, Kate, Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Dailey, Dharma, Mohamed, Owla, Lee, Gina, Spiro, Emma S., 19 April 2018, 978-1-4503-5620-6, 1–12, Engage Early, Correct More: How Journalists Participate in False Rumors Online during Crisis Events, 10.1145/3173574.3173679, 5046314, BOOK, Arif, Ahmer, Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Robinson, John J., Stanek, Stephanie A., Fichet, Elodie S., Townsend, Paul, Worku, Zena, Starbird, Kate, 2017, 978-1-4503-4335-0, 155–168, A Closer Look at the Self-Correcting Crowd, 10.1145/2998181.2998294, 15167363, The problem of misinformation in social media is getting worse as younger generations prefer social media over journalistic for their source of information.JOURNAL, Spradling, Matthew, Straub, Jeremy, Strong, Jay, June 2021, Protection from 'Fake News': The Need for Descriptive Factual Labeling for Online Content, Future Internet, 13, 6, 142, 10.3390/fi13060142, 1999-5903, free,

Countermeasures

Combating the spread of misinformation on social medias is difficult for reasons such as :

• the profusion of misinformation sources makes the reader's task of weighing the reliability of information more challengingWEB, Messerole, Chris, 2018-05-09, How misinformation spreads on social media â€“ And what to do about it,weblink live,weblink 25 February 2019, 24 February 2019, Brookings Institution,
• social media's propensity for culture wars embeds misinformation with identity-based conflictJOURNAL, Diaz Ruiz, Carlos, Nilsson, Tomas, 2022-08-08, Disinformation and Echo Chambers: How Disinformation Circulates on Social Media Through Identity-Driven Controversies, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 42, 18–35, 10.1177/07439156221103852, 0743-9156, free,
• the proliferation of echo chambers form an epistemic environment in which participants encounter beliefs and opinions that coincide with their own,JOURNAL, Nguyen, C. Thi, Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles, 2020,weblink Episteme, 17, 2, 141–161, 10.1017/epi.2018.32, 171520109, 1742-3600, 2022-11-25, 2022-02-09,weblink live, moving the entire group toward more extreme positions.

With the large audiences that can be reached and the experts on various subjects on social media, some believe social media could also be the key to correcting misinformation.JOURNAL, Bode, Leticia, Vraga, Emily K., See Something, Say Something: Correction of Global Health Misinformation on Social Media, Health Communication, 2 September 2018, 33, 9, 1131–1140, 10.1080/10410236.2017.1331312, 28622038, 205698884, Journalists today are criticized for helping to spread false information on these social platforms, but research shows they also play a role in curbing it through debunking and denying false rumors.

COVID-19 misinformation

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, social media was used as one of the main propagators for spreading misinformation about symptoms, treatments, and long-term health-related problems. This problem has initialized a significant effort in developing automated detection methods for misinformation on social media platforms.The creator of the Stop Mandatory Vaccination made money posting anti-vax false news on social media. He posted more than 150 posts aimed towards women, garnering a total of 1.6 million views and earning money for every click and share.{{sfn|Aral|2020|p=43}}

Misinformation on TikTok

A research report by NewsGuard found there is a very high level (~20% in their probes of videos about relevant topics) of online misinformation delivered – to a mainly young user base – with TikTok, whose (essentially unregulated) usage is increasing as of 2022.NEWS, Tucker, Emma, 18 September 2022, TikTok's search engine repeatedly delivers misinformation to its majority-young user base, report says {{!, CNN Business |work=CNN |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/18/business/tiktok-search-engine-misinformation/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=19 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019151032weblink |archive-date=19 October 2022}}WEB, Misinformation Monitor: September 2022,weblink live,weblink 18 October 2022, 19 October 2022, NewsGuard,

Misinformation on Facebook

A research study of Facebook found that misinformation was more likely to be clicked on than factual information.NEWS, Dwoskin, Elizabeth, Misinformation on Facebook got six times more clicks than factual news during the 2020 election, study says, The Washington Post,weblink live, 2021-10-22,weblink 2021-10-21, The most common reasons that Facebook users were sharing misinformation for socially-motivated reasons, rather than taking the information seriously.BOOK, Chen, Xinran, Proceedings of the 15th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Sin, Sei-Ching Joanna, Theng, Yin-Leng, Lee, Chei Sian, 2015, 978-1-4503-3594-2, 111–114, Why do Social Media Users Share Misinformation?, 10.1145/2756406.2756941, 15983217, Facebook's coverage of misinformation has become a hot topic with the spread of COVID-19, as some reports indicated Facebook recommended pages containing health misinformation.NEWS, Griffith, Chris, 21 July 2021, Facebook exposed over its handling of COVID misinformation, The Australian, Canberra, {{ProQuest, 2553642687, }} For example, this can be seen when a user likes an anti-vax Facebook page. Automatically, more and more anti-vax pages are recommended to the user. Additionally, some reference Facebook's inconsistent censorship of misinformation leading to deaths from COVID-19.Facebook estimated the existence of up to 60 million troll bots actively spreading misinformation on their platform,JOURNAL, Iyengar, Shanto, Massey, Douglas S., 16 April 2019, Scientific communication in a post-truth society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 16, 7656–7661, 2019PNAS..116.7656I, 10.1073/pnas.1805868115, 6475392, 30478050, free, and has taken measures to stop the spread of misinformation, resulting in a decrease, though misinformation continues to exist on the platform. On Facebook, adults older than 65 were seven times more likely to share fake news than adults ages 18–29.JOURNAL, Swire-Thompson, Briony, Lazer, David, 2 April 2020, Public Health and Online Misinformation: Challenges and Recommendations, Annual Review of Public Health, 41, 1, 433–451, 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040119-094127, 31874069, free,

Misinformation on Twitter

Twitter is one of the most concentrated platforms for engagement with political fake news. 80% of fake news sources are shared by 0.1% of users, who are "super-sharers". Older, more conservative social users are also more likely to interact with fake news. Another source of misinformation on Twitter are bot accounts, especially surrounding climate change.WEB, 2020-02-21, Revealed: a quarter of all tweets about climate crisis produced by bots,weblink 2021-04-20, The Guardian, 2021-04-29,weblink live, Bot accounts on Twitter accelerate true and fake news at the same rate.JOURNAL, Vosoughi, Soroush, Roy, Deb, Aral, Sinan, 2018-03-09, The spread of true and false news online, Science, 359, 6380, 1146–1151, 10.1126/science.aap9559, 29590045, 2018Sci...359.1146V, 4549072, 0036-8075, free, A 2018 study of Twitter determined that, compared to accurate information, false information spread significantly faster, further, deeper, and more broadly. A research study watched the process of thirteen rumors appearing on Twitter and noticed that eleven of those same stories resurfaced multiple times, after time had passed.JOURNAL, Shin, Jieun, Jian, Lian, Driscoll, Kevin, Bar, François, June 2018, The diffusion of misinformation on social media: Temporal pattern, message, and source, Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 278–287, 10.1016/j.chb.2018.02.008, 41956979, A social media app called Parler has caused much chaos as well. Right winged Twitter users who were banned on the app moved to Parler after the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and the app was being used to plan and facilitate more illegal and dangerous activities. Google and Apple later pulled the app off their respective app stores. This app has been able to cause a lot of misinformation and bias in the media, allowing for more political mishaps.NEWS, 10 January 2021, Amazon to suspend Parler after deadly Capitol Hill riot, Al Jazeera,weblink live, 7 March 2022,weblink 7 March 2022,

Misinformation on YouTube

{{excerpt|Social impact of YouTube|False scientific content}}

Lack of peer review

(File:In Peer Review We Trust.jpg|thumb|Promoting more Peer Review to benefit the accuracy in information)Due to the decentralized nature and structure of the Internet, content creators can easily publish content without being required to undergo peer review, prove their qualifications, or provide backup documentation. While library books have generally been reviewed and edited by an editor, publishing company, etc., Internet sources cannot be assumed to be vetted by anyone other than their authors. Misinformation may be produced, reproduced, and posted immediately on most online platforms.JOURNAL, Stapleton, Paul, Assessing the quality and bias of web-based sources: implications for academic writing, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2003, 2, 3, 229–245, 10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00026-2, JOURNAL, West, Jevin D., Bergstrom, Carl T., Misinformation in and about science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021, 118, 15, 10.1073/pnas.1912444117, 33837146, 8054004, 2021PNAS..11812444W, free,

Censorship accusations

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have found themselves defending accusations of censorship for removing posts they have deemed to be misinformation. Social media censorship policies relying on government agency-issued guidance to determine information validity have garnered criticism that such policies have the unintended effect of stifling dissent and criticism of government positions and policies.NEWS, Facebook's Lab-Leak About-Face, The Wall Street Journal,weblink live, 2021-07-14, 2021-07-14,weblink Most recently, social media companies have faced criticism over allegedly prematurely censoring the discussion of the SARS-CoV 2 Lab Leak Hypothesis.NEWS, Covid origin: Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory is being taken seriously, BBC News, 27 May 2021,weblink live, 14 July 2021, 30 June 2021,weblink Other accusations of censorship appear to stem from attempts to prevent social media consumers from self-harm through the use of unproven COVID-19 treatments. For example, in July 2020, a video went viral showing Dr. Stella Immanuel claiming hydroxychloroquine was an effective cure for COVID-19. In the video, Immanuel suggested that there was no need for masks, school closures, or any kind of economic shut down; attesting that her alleged cure was highly effective in treating those infected with the virus. The video was shared 600,000 times and received nearly 20 million views on Facebook before it was taken down for violating community guidelines on spreading misinformation.NEWS, 2020-07-28, Hydroxychloroquine: Why a video promoted by Trump was pulled on social media, BBC News,weblink 2021-11-24, 2020-11-02,weblink live, The video was also taken down on Twitter overnight, but not before former president Donald Trump shared it to his page, which was followed by over 85 million Twitter users. NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci and members of the World Health Organization (WHO) quickly discredited the video, citing larger-scale studies of hydroxychloroquine showing it is not an effective treatment of COVID-19, and the FDA cautioned against using it to treat COVID-19 patients following evidence of serious heart problems arising in patients who have taken the drug.NEWS, 2020-07-29, Stella Immanuel – the doctor behind unproven coronavirus cure claim, BBC News,weblink 2020-11-23, 2021-10-11,weblink live, Another prominent example of misinformation removal criticized by some as an example of censorship was the New York Posts report on the Hunter Biden laptops approximately two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, which was used to promote the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. Social media companies quickly removed this report, and the Posts Twitter account was temporarily suspended. Over 50 intelligence officials found the disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's son had all the "classic earmarks of a Russian information operation".WEB, Bertrand, Natasha, Natasha Bertrand, October 19, 2020, Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,weblink live,weblink October 20, 2020, October 20, 2020, Politico, Later evidence emerged that at least some of the laptop's contents were authentic.WEB, Lizza, Ryan, Ryan Lizza, September 21, 2021, Politico Playbook: Double Trouble for Biden,weblink Politico, September 23, 2021, November 23, 2021,weblink live,

Noteworthy examples

An example of bad information from media sources that led to the spread of misinformation occurred in November 2005, when Chris Hansen on Dateline NBC claimed that law enforcement officials estimate 50,000 predators are online at any moment. Afterward, the U.S. attorney general at the time, Alberto Gonzales, repeated the claim. However, the number that Hansen used in his reporting had no backing. Hansen said he received the information from Dateline expert Ken Lanning, but Lanning admitted that he made up the number 50,000 because there was no solid data on the number. According to Lanning, he used 50,000 because it sounds like a real number, not too big and not too small, and referred to it as a "Goldilocks number". Reporter Carl Bialik says that the number 50,000 is used often in the media to estimate numbers when reporters are unsure of the exact data.BOOK, The Influencing Machine, Gladstone, Brooke, W. W. Norton & Company, 2012, 978-0-393-34246-8, New York, 49–51, During the COVID-19 pandemic, a conspiracy theory that Coronavirus was linked to the 5G network gained significant traction worldwide after emerging on social media.JOURNAL, Stewart, Mallory, 2021, Defending Weapons Inspections from the Effects of Disinformation, AJIL Unbound, 115, 106–110, 10.1017/aju.2021.4, 232070073, free, Misinformation was a major talking point during the 2016 American Presidential Election with claims of social media sites allowing "fake news" to be spread.NEWS, {{ProQuest, 2477885938, |last1=Brosnan |first1=Deanne |date=13 January 2021 |title=When Misinformation is Misinformation |newspaper=CE Think Tank Newswire |location=Miami }}

Impact

{{Very long section|date=November 2022}}The Liar's Dividend describes a situation in which individuals are so concerned about realistic misinformation (in particular, deepfakes) that they begin to mistrust real content, particularly if someone claims that it is false.WEB, 2024-02-08, Deepfakes, Elections, and Shrinking the Liar's Dividend {{!, Brennan Center for Justice |url=https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/deepfakes-elections-and-shrinking-liars-dividend |access-date=2024-04-12 |website=www.brennancenter.org}} For instance, a politician could benefit from claiming that a real video of them doing something embarrassing was actually AI-generated or altered, leading followers to mistrust something that was actually real. On a larger scale this problem can lead to erosion in the public's trust of generally reliable information sources.Misinformation can affect all aspects of life. Allcott, Gentzkow, and Yu concur that the diffusion of misinformation through social media is a potential threat to democracy and broader society. The effects of misinformation can lead to decline of accuracy of information as well as event details.JOURNAL, Bodner, Glen E., Musch, Elisabeth, Azad, Tanjeem, Reevaluating the potency of the memory conformity effect, Memory & Cognition, December 2009, 37, 8, 1069–1076, 10.3758/MC.37.8.1069, 19933452, free, When eavesdropping on conversations, one can gather facts that may not always be true, or the receiver may hear the message incorrectly and spread the information to others. On the Internet, one can read content that is stated to be factual but that may not have been checked or may be erroneous. In the news, companies may emphasize the speed at which they receive and send information but may not always be correct in the facts. These developments contribute to the way misinformation may continue to complicate the public's understanding of issues and to serve as a source for belief and attitude formation.BOOK,weblink Misinformation and Mass Audiences, Southwell, Brian G., Thorson, Emily A., Sheble, Laura, 2018, University of Texas Press, 978-1-4773-1458-6, In regards to politics, some view being a misinformed citizen as worse than being an uninformed citizen. Misinformed citizens can state their beliefs and opinions with confidence and thus affect elections and policies. This type of misinformation occurs when a speaker appears "authoritative and legitimate", while also spreading misinformation. When information is presented as vague, ambiguous, sarcastic, or partial, receivers are forced to piece the information together and make assumptions about what is correct.BOOK, Barker, David, Rushed to Judgement: Talk Radio, Persuasion, and American Political Behavior, 2002, Columbia University Press, New York, 106–109, Misinformation has the power to sway public elections and referendums if it gains enough momentum. Leading up to the 2016 UK European Union membership referendum, for example, a figure used prominently by the Vote Leave campaign claimed that by leaving the EU the UK would save £350 million a week, 'for the NHS'. Claims then circulated widely in the campaign that this amount would (rather than could theoretically) be redistributed to the British National Health Service after Brexit. This was later deemed a "clear misuse of official statistics" by the UK statistics authority.Moreover, the advert infamously shown on the side of London's double-decker busses did not take into account the UK's budget rebate, and the idea that 100% of the money saved would go to the NHS was unrealistic. A poll published in 2016 by Ipsos MORI found that nearly half of the British public believed this misinformation to be true.NEWS, The misinformation that was told about Brexit during and after the referendum,weblink The Independent, 2 August 2018,weblink 15 May 2022, Even when information is proven to be misinformation, it may continue to shape attitudes towards a given topic,BOOK, Marwick, Alice, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online, Lewis, Rebecca, Data & Society Research Institute, 2017, New York, 40–45, meaning it has the power to swing political decisions if it gains enough traction. A study conducted by Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy and Sinan Aral looked at Twitter data including 126,000 posts spread by 3 million people over 4.5 million times. They found that political news traveled faster than any other type of information. They found that false news about politics reached more than 20,000 people three times faster than all other types of false news.{{sfn|Aral|2020|pp=45-47}}Aside from political propaganda, misinformation can also be employed in industrial propaganda. Using tools such as advertising, a company can undermine reliable evidence or influence belief through a concerted misinformation campaign. For instance, tobacco companies employed misinformation in the second half of the twentieth century to diminish the reliability of studies that demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer.BOOK, O'Connor, Cailin,weblink The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread, Weatherall, James Owen, Yale University Press, 2019, 978-0-300-23401-5, New Haven, 10, limited, In the medical field, misinformation can immediately lead to life endangerment as seen in the case of the public's negative perception towards vaccines or the use of herbs instead of medicines to treat diseases.BOOK, Sinha, P.,weblink India Misinformed: The True Story, Shaikh, S., Sidharth, A., Harper Collins, 2019, 978-93-5302-838-1, In regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of misinformation has proven to cause confusion as well as negative emotions such as anxiety and fear.JOURNAL, Bratu, Sofia, May 24, 2020, The Fake News Sociology of COVID-19 Pandemic Fear: Dangerously Inaccurate Beliefs, Emotional Contagion, and Conspiracy Ideation, Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, 19, 128–134, 10.22381/LPI19202010, free, Q, Q97652640, Misinformation regarding proper safety measures for the prevention of the virus that go against information from legitimate institutions like the World Health Organization can also lead to inadequate protection and possibly place individuals at risk for exposure.WEB, 2020-07-29, Misinformation on coronavirus is proving highly contagious,weblink 2020-11-23, AP NEWS, 2020-11-20,weblink live, Some scholars and activists are heading movements to eliminate the mis/disinformation and information pollution in the digital world. One theory, "information environmentalism," has become a curriculum in some universities and colleges.NEWS,weblink Info-Environmentalism: An Introduction, 2018-09-28,weblink 2018-07-03, live, NEWS,weblink Information Environmentalism, 2017-12-21, Digital Learning and Inquiry (DLINQ), 2018-09-28,weblink 2018-09-28, live, The general study of misinformation and disinformation is by now also common across various academic disciplines, including sociology, communication, computer science, and political science, leading to the emerging field being described loosely as "Misinformation and Disinformation Studies".JOURNAL, Righetti, Nicola, Rossi, Luca, Marino, Giada, At the onset of an infodemic: Geographic and disciplinary boundaries in researching problematic COVID-19 information, First Monday, 4 July 2022, 10.5210/fm.v27i7.12557, 250289817, free, However, various scholars and journalists have criticised this development, pointing to problematic normative assumptions, a varying quality of output and lack of methodological rigor, as well as a too strong impact of mis- and disinformation research in shaping public opinion and policymaking.MAGAZINE, Bernstein, Joseph, Bad News: Selling the story of disinformation,weblink Harper's Magazine, 9 August 2021, 30 September 2022, 26 September 2022,weblink live, WEB, Adler-Bell, Sam, 2022-05-20, The Liberal Obsession With 'Disinformation' Is Not Helping,weblink 2022-09-30, Intelligencer, 2022-09-30,weblink live, Summarising the most frequent points of critique, communication scholars Chico Camargo and Felix Simon wrote in an article for the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review that "mis-/disinformation studies has been accused of lacking clear definitions, having a simplified understanding of what it studies, a too great emphasis on media effects, a neglect of intersectional factors, an outsized influence of funding bodies and policymakers on the research agenda of the field, and an outsized impact of the field on policy and policymaking."JOURNAL, Camargo, Chico Q., Simon, Felix M., Mis- and disinformation studies are too big to fail: Six suggestions for the field's future, Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 20 September 2022, 10.37016/mr-2020-106, 252423678, free,

See also

{hide}columns-list|colwidth=30em|

• List of common misconceptions
• List of fact-checking websites
• List of fake news websites
• List of satirical news websites
• Alarmism
• Big lie
• Character assassination
  • Defamation (also known as "slander")
• Counter Misinformation Team
• COVID-19 misinformation
• Euromyth
• Factoid
• Fallacy
  • List of fallacies
• Flat earth
• Gossip
• Junk science
• Memetic warfare
• Memory conformity
• Misinformation related to abortion
• Misinformation related to 5G technology
• Persuasion
• Pseudoscience
• Quotation
• Rumor
• Sensationalism
• Social engineering (in political science and cybercrime)
• The Disinformation Project
• Truth sandwich

{edih}

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

{{Library resources box}}

• BOOK, 10.1145/3308560.3316738, A Study of Misinformation in WhatsApp groups with a focus on the Brazilian Presidential Elections, Companion Proceedings of the 2019 World Wide Web Conference, 2019, Machado, Caio, Kira, Beatriz, Narayanan, Vidya, Kollanyi, Bence, Howard, Philip, 1013–1019, 978-1-4503-6675-5, 153314118,
• JOURNAL, Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M., 32730475, 2017, Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31, 2, 211–236, 10.1257/jep.31.2.211, free,
• BOOK, Aral, Sinan, The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--and How We Must Adapt, Currency, 2020, 978-0-525-57451-4, First, New York, 1155486056,
• Baillargeon, Normand (4 January 2008). A short course in intellectual self-defense. Seven Stories Press. {{ISBN|978-1-58322-765-7}}. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
• JOURNAL, Bakir, Vian, McStay, Andrew, Fake News and The Economy of Emotions: Problems, causes, solutions, Digital Journalism, 7 February 2018, 6, 2, 154–175, 10.1080/21670811.2017.1345645, 157153522,weblink
• Christopher Cerf, and Victor Navasky, The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation, Pantheon Books, 1984.
• JOURNAL, Cook, John, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence, PLOS One, 2017-05-05, 12, 5, e0175799, 10.1371/journal.pone.0175799, 28475576, 5419564, 2017PLoSO..1275799C, free,
• Helfand, David J., A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind. Columbia University Press, 2016. {{ISBN|978-0231541022}}
• Christopher Murphy (2005). Competitive Intelligence: Gathering, Analysing And Putting It to Work. Gower Publishing, Ltd.. pp. 186–189. {{ISBN|0-566-08537-2}}. A case study of misinformation arising from simple error
• NEWS, O'Connor, Cailin, Weatherall, James Owen, How Misinformation Spreads—and Why We Trust It,weblink Scientific American, 1 September 2019,
• O'Connor, Cailin, and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age; How False Beliefs Spread. Yale University Press, 2019. {{ISBN|978-0300241006}}
• BOOK, Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information, 2019, Paul, Offit, Columbia University Press, 978-0-231-18699-5,
• Persily, Nathaniel, and Joshua A. Tucker, eds. Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field and Prospects for Reform. Cambridge University Press, 2020. {{ISBN|978-1108858779}}
• Jürg Strässler (1982). Idioms in English: A Pragmatic Analysis. Gunter Narr Verlag. pp. 43–44. {{ISBN|3-87808-971-6}}.
• JOURNAL, West, Jevin D., Bergstrom, Carl T., Misinformation in and about science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021, 118, 15, 10.1073/pnas.1912444117, 33837146, 8054004, 2021PNAS..11812444W, free,

External links

• WEB,weblink Comic: Fake News Can Be Deadly. Here's How To Spot It, audio tutorial, graphic tutorial, NPR,

date=April 20, 2020, Connie Hanzhang Jin, Miles Parks,

• WEB,weblink Management and Strategy Institute, Free Misinformation and Disinformation Training online, 23 August 2022, free online class,

{{Disinformation}}{{Authority control}}