Misinformation Technology: Past, Present, and Future
The Covid pandemic has ignited another heated debate on who should be able to say what and to whom via digital platforms. Those in power hold the belief that unprecedented situations call for unprecedented reactions and strategies to keep people safe. Corporate media, platform owners, and governments are acting in the face of a crisis, however in our current media ecosystem it can feel as if society is perpetually rolling from one crisis to the next. Misinformation and censorship is nothing new, both have occurred frequently throughout modern history, only the tactics and technology used have changed. Authoritarian regimes and fringe podcast hosts do not have a monopoly on misinformation, this is something that is spread throughout corporate media landscape and democratic governments as well. However, when big business and members of democratic governments spread misinformation it is treated with a different response or none at all. High tech misinformation will be a large factor in creating the climate that would sway populations into accepting a third world war.
Since humans have been able to share and distribute ideas en masse there has been the possibility to circulate false or misleading information. All the way back to the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, The Malleus Maleficarum was a book the was popular from the 15th to 17th century. This book informed its readers about what witches do, how do identify them, how to get them to confess, and how to bring them to swift punishment. This deadly form of misinformation aided in the deaths of tens of thousands of women. Fast forward to 1909 shortly before the outbreak of World War 1 when a form of cheap salacious spy novels were wildly popular throughout England. These types of novels were called pulp fiction or penny dreadful’s due to the low quality paper they were printed on, their absence of truth, and their low cost to acquire. A pulp novel called Spies of the Kaiser that was presented as non-fiction claimed that there were over 5,000 German spies inside of England plotting against the nation. This work of misinformation rallied the English public to protest their government into action kicking of a naval arms race that would make a brutal conflict even deadlier when war eventually broke out.
Plenty notable events surrounding information happened between the age of penny dreadfuls and the advent of the 24/7 news cycle, however there is not enough time to cover them all in this paper. Cable news and the television coming into the home primarily during the Vietnam War meant that our culture experienced its first living room war. During the Vietnam War viewers watched from the comfort of their home and felt as if they were an active participant in the conflict. Journalists on the front line of the war would cover battles and receive press briefs from the military showing that the America’s efforts were successful, keeping people glued to the screens and money flowing. Much of the information that was given to the press by the military was misleading or false, as the war effort got more desperate the US army began using the death count of enemy combatants as a metric of success leading the public to believe America was winning. On numerous occasions these body counts were simply guesses or exaggerations. This misinformation maintained the publics support for the war longer than it would have had they not been given this information.
In the months that followed the attacks on The World Trade Center in September 2001, corporate media channels like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC disseminated all sorts of misinformation to justify American military action in the Middle East. This sort of process can be described as manufacturing consent, when the media infrastructure is used by political powers to manage public opinion towards a certain action or idea. The media misinformed the public with “intelligence” reports exaggerating the threat of Al Qaeda fighters in the Middle East and alleging that they were capable of acquiring then using weapons of mass destruction against Americans. In October 2001 the war in Afghanistan began then an invasion of Iraq two years later. Throughout the war allegations that the United States was torturing people suspected of being terrorists were frequently denied by members of the media and government. A common defence was that America did not torture anyone, they only practiced “enhanced interrogation techniques” in places that were not technically the USA like Guantanamo Bay and other “black sites.” Years later it was admitted by Barack Obama that the US had indeed “tortured some folks.” The allegations of weapons of mass destruction and exaggerated claims about the number of Al Qaeda fighters were simply not true. American military action in the middle east predicated off of misinformation resulted in the further destabilization of an entire region and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. When governments and large media organization spread misinformation there is little to no repercussions or accountability while the real world affects are incredibly damaging.
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen no shortage of misinformation right from its inception. Theories of its origin, treatments, prevention, the diseases severity, and efficacy of vaccines have ranged widely. What is accepted as factual and open for debate today, was not two years ago. For example in March 2020 Dr Anthony Fauci said on live television that masks didn’t work or did very little to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Fauci said this to preserve the little PPE that the country did have for doctors that truly needed it. A noble lie, however going on television and misleading the American public damaged his trustworthiness regardless of his intention and gave legitimacy to those trying to argue that masks didn’t work. We now know that masks do work. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau sloganeered “two weeks to flatten the curve” assuring the public that if they all just hunkered down for a few weeks this would soon be over. Two years later, this statement is still not true. At one of Donald Trump’s Covid press briefings he mused aloud on live TV the idea to “hit the body” with bleach and UV light in order to give it “a cleaning” thus curing a patient of Covid. This caused some of his supporters to drink bleach and die. Early on in the pandemic Trump also shared his thoughts that perhaps Covid was bioengineered in a Chinese laboratory, this became known as the lab leak theory. Those that supported the lab leak theory were called racist and banned from platforms like Twitter for promoting conspiracy theories. A year later, mainstream outlets like CNN gave credence to the theory.
Early discussions of the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines told us that the vaccines would stop covid in its tracks and end the pandemic. This was not the reality as breakthrough infections occurred more often than the pharmaceutical companies wanted to admit. The vaccines reduced the likelihood of serious illness but not the chance of contracting the virus at all. This is accepted as fact now, but if a person had said this at the time the early vaccines were being administered they would have been labeled an anti-vaxer. Two years into the pandemic and here in Ontario the government still refuses to acknowledge that Covid is airborne even though organizations like the CDC have admitted this a possibility. The Ontario government is more focused on “ending” the pandemic for political reasons to get ready for the next election rather than investing the time and money to make sure indoor shared spaces have safe air. Plenty of misinformation has been spread throughout this pandemic through a variety of actors in the government and media with little accountability. This misinformation has lead to physical harm and societal damage that results from a major loss of trust in our public institutions.
This distrust of public institutions has lead many people to seek alternative information outlets especially in the medium of long form podcasts. The most popular being the Joe Rogan Experience which reaches so many people that Spotify paid $100 million to acquire exclusive rights to the show. Joe Rogan’s audience grew significantly during the pandemic as he had guests on that would provide opposing views to what was being broadcast in the news. With all the inconsistent messaging coming from media and governments it is not surprising that people would rather listen to Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan has said on multiple occasions that when he does his show he usually just wings it, this is in stark contrast to news outlets with carefully prepared talking points, expert panels, and their serious authoritative tone. One of the appeals of Joe Rogan is that despite him being a multi millionaire celebrity he cultivates a persona of being the average middle of the road American male who one would likely want to have a beer with. Viewers feel as if they are on the journey of learning more about a wide range of topics with Joe as opposed to feeling like they are being talked down to by experts in the news media.
As the covid crisis began to wind down, institutional media moved on to its next crisis which was Joe Rogan’s podcast, stories about Rogan dominated the news cycle for nearly three whole weeks. The episodes that’s raised the most controversy were when Joe had Dr Peter McCullough on who made all sorts of frightening claims about MRNA technology and another episode where Joe recommended healthy young people to avoid taking the vaccine. Joe caught Covid himself and took a laundry list of medication to cure his illness, one of these medications being Ivermectin. Rogan claims he took this under advice from his doctor, but this was covered in the news as him taking a dangerous horse deworming medication and encouraging others to do the same. In the three week media circus that had Rogan being talked about nearly everyday, all sorts of allegations were levelled against him. Rogan was painted as a right wing extremist despite his stated positions of being in favour of left policies like UBI, marriage equality, women’s right to choose, and never having voted for a Republican in his life. Rogan also publicly endorsed democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Calls came from the public, celebrities, corporations, and politicians to force Spotify to do something about the Joe Rogan problem. Critics of Joe Rogan wanted him de-platformed and taken off social media, while his supporters wanted him to be able to say whatever he wants with no consequences. Just as the pandemic was deeply politicized so was this. The issue made it all the way up to Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki who shared her view that action taken against Joe Rogan had not gone far enough. Neil Young even voiced his criticism over Joe Rogan’s podcasts and removed all his music from Spotify’s catalog to put pressure on the company.
Spotify eventually removed around 50 episodes from Rogan’s catalog after another scandal surfaced of Joe using racially insensitive language many years ago. It is hard to determine whether this is genuine censorship or not but what is fascinating is how the blame for the spread of medical misinformation was put on one individual, one person, Joe Rogan. While media organization and governments have been able to misinform the public for centuries without accountability. To look at medical misinformation specifically, the problem is much bigger than Joe Rogan. Amazon sells all sorts of bogus supplements that claim to cure diseases like HPV and plenty of books that contain misinformation about Covid or vaccines. Netflix hosts shows like “What the Health” that makes claims like eating one egg a day is as dangerous as smoking. On Twitter, 10% of tweets that mention Covid contain misinformation. Attempts to de-platform and censor an individual person are misguided and give the impression of doing something without having actually done much. De-platorming someone only erodes the rights we have to freedom of expression in our society and sets a precedent for those in power to be able to censor further in the future. Censorship used to be something that was done by totalitarian regimes like the STASI and SED in East Germany, now it is done under pressure from the public by corporate platforms. Instead of blacking out sentences in private correspondences, episodes or parts of episodes are removed from the internet. Instead of disappearing someone in the middle of the night a person is taken off of a platform, a sort of digital disappearance. The presence or threat of censorship as seen in East Germany causes individuals to self censor because they know what can happen to them. Self censorship is now common on digital platforms due to the possibility of being removed from said platform or being cancelled by an angry mob. These efforts only target the individual and not those who hold the power.
The stakes of misinformation surrounding Covid itself and vaccination were relatively high. However, as we roll over to the next crisis, the prospects of a new global conflict, the stakes are even higher. Within the first two weeks of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine social media platforms like Twitter have be inundated with false or misleading content claiming to be footage from the events that are unfolding. A Ukrainian fighter pilot was valourized on Twitter for taking down several Russian planes, given the nickname “The Ghost of Kyiv.” Unfortunately the videos that were shared as evidence of these events were screen captures from a video game. Videos from an explosion in Beirut from 2020 were going viral with those posting the content claiming that the videos were from the Ukraine. A photo of Ukrainian president Zelinsky in the trenches wearing body armour went viral with the intent of leading people to believe that the president was in the trenches fighting the war himself, this photo was from a training exercise several years ago.
Due to virality being a feature of these platforms, by the time these posts are flagged or removed they’ve already been seen by millions of people. This could appear as a less nefarious form of misinformation due to the contents ability to raise morale in the Ukraine, regardless it is not truthful. The most eye popping example so far is a heavily edited video that was made to convince the people of Europe to support Ukraine further. In this video different landmarks in Paris are seen being hit by presumably Russian air strikes. The video is shot from a first person perspective, vertical, shaky, and with lots of distressing background noise. This video is very convincing for the Ukrainian cause, but the ability for a video like this to look so believable and spread so quickly should frighten people. What happens if this video is seen by the wrong person in power who then acts on a whim? In the age of digital platforms it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fake, with most people being unequipped or unwilling to spend the time to figure it out.
Misinformation is nothing new, ever since humans have been able to share information they have also been able to share false information. Looking at misinformation in the history of technology, one can see that even as far back as the printing press, false information was being published and distributed. Whether it is untrue information about witches, spies, wars, vaccines, or viruses it seems as if there has always been a demand from different sectors of the public for information that opposes the official narrative. When individual actors spread misinformation they are often ostracized or punished but when democratic governments and large media organizations do it accountability is rarely taken. As information consumers we always need to be on the look out for stories and narratives that may be false, misleading, or trying to convince us that something bad for us is actually good. As the information or misinformation technology gets more advanced and society becomes more polarized this will be easier said than done. With the prospects of a global conflict between nuclear armed super powers on the horizon, our lives truly depend on it.
