 So once again, welcome. Today's lesson is going to be on misinformation and how you can identify it, what makes people fall for it, and what you can do. So I'm Brittany Norwood, I use she her pronouns, and I'm a common librarian here at Hodges library. So if you ever come up to the public services desk, or you use research assistance, I might be with a person who ends up helping out. And my email address is norwoodbr at utk.edu. Hello there. I am Sarah Johnson. I use she her hers pronouns as well. And I'm also a common librarian so. Yeah, like Brittany said jack of all trades we do a little bit of everything. And please feel free to contact either of us. If you have any questions about anything we're librarians. Okay. Yeah, it's not. Oh, there we go. Give me one second see what's going on with my screen. Yeah, for some reason it skipped over your slide Sarah. Now we are back to it. I mean, I guess that's par for the course with how life goes these days. Anywho. Okay, so this image that you see here. Apparently, government organizations have to put into writing that mermaids are not real. Why might you ask. Yep, that's what we're going to be talking about today, or part of it partly. So this image here is actually from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a fairly trusted, you know, nonpartisan organization. And they created this post, and please know that it was updated March of this year. And they created this post to address the, the many questions they were getting about mermaids being real, and Brittany is going to talk about a little bit why that might be the key. Yeah, so you might be wondering why so many people were asking the NOAA, why are my maids or mermaids real. Several sources state that this influx of questioning came about following the discovery channel and animal planet screenings of mermaids, the body found. So here is one of the title cards for this film. This was aired in 2012 and it was a fake documentary. And in a piece affirming that this was supposed to be fiction. And the Today Show quoted the mockumentary's press release claims that the film is science fiction using science as a springboard into the imagination. Now that might seem in a sense enough, several artists utilize innovative and experimental methods to create revolutionary pieces. The problem was mermaids wasn't marketed as science fiction. They made aware that the so called scientists were just actors, and that the so called science was actually based on highly controversial and an overall discredited hypothesis. Furthermore, several sources say but there wasn't even a mention that this film is fake until the brief title card aired after the documentary itself had finished. And all of this information with the fact that this documentary aired on channels that had a good reputation reputation for disseminating science in an accessible manner. He ended up with a perfect storm. But discovery didn't just stop after the backlash from this film. Here's that they had identified the market for conspiracy theories was profitable. And I think it just claim artistic license when members of the scientific community vault. If you keep making more film similar to mermaids would some even more steeped and disinformation. Perfect example of this was their film Megalodon, the monster shark that lives. While credible scientists were appalled by the pseudo science presented that claimed the mega Megalodon might still exist, and they did everything in the power to disseminate the information needed to prove that it couldn't possibly still be alive. Those associated with the film responded by saying, quote, since a contemporary Megalodon cannot be disproven, the jury is out on its continued existence, end quote. So essentially they were claiming that since you can't not find one. You can't say it doesn't exist. So the reasons why this is so troubling, or that these fake documentaries were presented as true. This was said by tolerance shift man who said these fake documentaries followed a very particular style, leaving real science, natural history and current events with fabricated images CGI video and interviews with actors playing experts, witnesses and government officials. In each case, the fake documentaries created conflict by inserting real government agencies into narratives as antagonists and implicated working scientists and fictional conspiracies. This process was so effective that a time magazine poll that was went live after the Megalodon, fake documentary screening showed that 79% of people who watched this film about the Megalodon was still alive, and only 259 or 27% of Watchers said quote, they thought the shark was extinct, and that the scientists are right. So, these so called documentaries were a masterclass in disinformation and conspiracy theories, and our perfect example of why the topics we're covering today are important. And that leads us into what we will be covering today. So, we're going to be going over the different types of missing disinformation. Why we're fooled by these information. We're going to identify this different resources that you could use to help you out throughout this process, and what you can do to help stop the spread of missing disinformation. So, I know a lot of what makes this topic so intimidating is the jargon. So I'm going to take a few minutes to explain it a bit more fully. The three terms you're going to hear most often are misinformation disinformation and conspiracy theories. Disinformation is untrue information that is circulated by a source that believes it to be true disinformation is untrue information circulated by a source that knows the information is untrue. Now you might be wondering why just that distinction is important. It's just semantic right. Well, not really think about it like this misinformation is the person who is lying to you, but they're not aware that they're lying. Disinformation is the person who's lying to you, and knows exactly what they're doing. And now we can say a lot about the argument surrounding intent and impact, and ultimately miss and disinformation can have the same impact. But we'd also need to account for the fact that anyone can be the person spreading misinformation, realize that they were wrong, and be an adult and responsible and mature and address that they've made a mistake. I'm intentionally lying to me. Well, that's someone I'm not going to trust in the future. And then we have conspiracy theories. Now conspiracy theories differ a bit from the other two, as this is more about a pattern of belief. And they are heavily rooted in the miss and disinformation landscape as they grow and build from the sharing of information that isn't true or is improperly presented. They're really big and different enough to warrant their own lesson. So let us know after this session, if you would like maybe to see a part two focusing on conspiracy theories next semester. In the meantime, let's look at some of the information or some more information about specific types of miss and disinformation. So here's some specialized terminology. First, there's imposter content, which occurs when another source of information is faked. So this could be like something like someone impersonating a celebrity social media account. Or it could be as extreme as someone faking an entire issue of the Washington Post and freely distributing several copies of the fake, which is a thing that really happened on May 1 of 2019. So for more information on that story, I have a link that I'm going to have Elijah put in the chat in case you are wondering how that came about and why people did this. But yeah, it is a thing that happened. It costed the people who made it a lot of money in the Wall Street journey or the Washington Post had to go into damage control mode really fast and release the actual image of the paper that they had ran that day. This leads into false context, which is what happens when real information is presented without the proper context. So this could be like what happens when somebody takes a seven bite of a person saying something, and they make it sound like they are meaning something completely different. In a similar vein, there's misleading content, which is the misleading use of information, often to villainize an idea or a person. There's false connection, which is essentially the technical term for clickbait. There's manipulated content, which is when real information is altered with the intention of misrepresenting it. And there's fabricated content, which is what happens when new content that is completely false is created. And this isn't just news or text based sources either. You can have things like computer generated imagery deep fakes so on. Then there is fake news, which is what happens when any of these misleading terms or misrepresented information or fabricated content is presented as actual news. And then there are some terms for mis or disinformation that is used in the scientific fields. So, once again, going back to Thaler and Schiffman, which is another link I'm going to have Elijah put out that way that you can reference it if you'd like. They have bad science, which defines what they defined as unsound conclusions drawn from valid premises. There's pseudoscience, which they say are sound conclusions drawn from invalid premises. And then there's fake science, which they define as unsound conclusions drawn from invalid premises. So yes, this does mean that even if you're looking at something that's supposed to be scholarly or peer reviewed, you still need to look at it critically because even that can be fallible. So now let's talk about why we fall for mis or disinformation. Well, it often speaks to something inside of us that wants to believe in things. There is something in it that is convincing to us. Perhaps it's because of how it's presented. Mis or disinformation can look like a reputable source. We might hear mis or disinformation from a person we trust like a parent, a religious leader, a mentor, and we are more likely to believe that information if it comes from one of those people. We might not believe in mis or disinformation because it reaffirms something that we already believe in. So we don't want to look too closely at it because that might mean that we have to actually think about our arguments a little bit more difficult and look at things more hardly, except that we might be wrong. And we might be more likely to believe in mis or disinformation if it elicits a strong emotion, particularly if that's a negative emotion, as our critical thinking skills are going to be impaired in that situation. And finally, there are some people who really do seem to be more likely to believe in mis or disinformation and conspiracy theories in particular than other people. This often has to do with the way our brain processes belief systems, and it has been found that people who are more superstitious or who already believe in one conspiracy theory are the people who are more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories. But what we really need to know now is how do we identify this sort of information so we don't fall for it anymore. So, first of all, there are a couple of skills you're going to want to use. Initially, if you want to make sure that you're approaching any piece of information with the intent of engaging in critical thinking. So yes, this means that even if you even do this with information that your family or your mentors share with you, people should always be willing to support their beliefs with proper information, citations, references. Now this doesn't mean that in that moment that they might have all the answers and they might need some time to look things back up, share sources with you, so on and so forth. But remember that you can also do that yourself, you can check out information that these people are telling you on your own, make sure that it's right. And ultimately critical thinking is key when it comes to identifying this and disinformation. Always make sure you're approaching any claim with the intention of gathering more information to see if you can back it up. So keep a healthy dose of skepticism. And I'm not telling you to always be cynical, but being cautious or at times cautiously optimistic until you haven't until you feel like the information has been verified is a good move. You're also going to want to engage in a lot of reading. So aside from critical thinking, this is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal. Lateral reading means getting off the page or the website that you're looking at and checking it against other sources. So if you were looking at something in the New York Times would want to go to other newspapers to double check that information. And this also means more than just basic fact checking. It can mean investigating the company or the author or the site's publisher, as well as searching for, you know, these different people, maybe in Google and seeing what other sources have to say. Now, lateral reading differs from some of the basic information credibility testing that used to be pretty effective. In the past, you could look for context clues on the website itself to see if it was the type of source you should be trusting. I mean, we've all seen older websites that look really sketchy. And you know, we know immediately, maybe I should look somewhere else. But now, even these sources that are telling you complete and other lies can look extremely professional. So that's why you're going to need to get off the page to look at other sources. See what they have to say about this information to know that this is something you need to be trusting. So try to find as much of a consensus as possible across several reliable sources. Check that the sources are citing sources if they're citing anything at all. And see if those sources look real credible and pertain to and support what the site has said. Check the author to see what their biases are, and if they might have been influenced by external factors like funding from a larger corporation. Check to see if the website itself is known to be filled with satire or is a known spriter of miscellaneous information. Next you also need to use click restraint. And this means resisting the urge to just select the first option the search engine gives you actually look through your result list to see what sources might be the most helpful and go to the next page is not a peer trustworthy or relevance to you. And if you aren't having any luck finding anything, try switching up your keywords, but don't just use the first thing Google throws at you, because it's easy to do that. If there's any image involved. And what you're trying to double check. This is a case in which you can often still analyze that using context clues. If someone is claiming that a photo to place a not full in the summer, look to see if there any landmarks you recognize. So you know if that picture has like the Eiffel Tower the Statue of Liberty in it. They are misrepresenting the image that did not happen and not full. But even if you notice something like Westtown mall, look at other context clues. There's three feet of snow in this picture of not full. And it's supposed to be in the summer. The timeline is probably wrong. If everyone's driving cars that look 10 years out of date, and the fashion is similarly dated. And there's a good chance that this is the really old image being construed to something new. And if you don't recognize any landmarks look for other factors. So say you're being told that an image of a city is from a city that has a desert climate. So look to see if actually the out surrounding area looks like it's a desert climate. It could also be useful to you know check the street name to see what language to the written in, or if there's anything that you automatically recognize. But remember that can get murky. Based on, you know, whether or not this is an area that is presenting their street signs in a language outside of what is going on in the larger area. So here's an example of reverse image search or geolocation to check the veracity of an image, or to see where an image actually comes from. So here's an example of this. I use Google Chrome to do this and if you look up how to reverse image search, then it'll tell you what browsers will work for you. I was on wish.com. I looked up strawberry dress and I found this and if somebody who knows a lot about fashion, I automatically knew what website this is from. I went down to Lyrica Matoshi dress that wish.com was trying to pass off as their own. When I right clicked on the image, I went down to search Google for image and that brought me up the research result, the reverse image search. And sure enough, the first link was the link to the Lyrica Matoshi website. And you can do this with more than just items, you can do this as places so you can see if the image might have actually occurred in not school. And while all these skills are great. Remember that you're also going to need to work on your mindset misinformation so often works because it makes people emotional. It does play with that clickbait sort of mentality. Outraging you or upsetting you enough that you stop questioning things. You can't do that. Keep a level head, even if that means stepping away from your device for a while until you can calm down enough to think things through clearly and rationally. Also make sure that you're aware of your own biases. Mis or disinformation exists across social cultural boundaries. And if there's a topic that you're passionate about, or an issue is presented in terms of sides, there's almost certainly miss or disinformation being presented across an entire spectrum of beliefs. And the closer the miss or disinformation is to your own biases, the more likely you are to fall for it. It's important to know these things about yourself, and to be aware of how you're taking an information because miss or disinformation is constructed in a way that can make you believe outrageous things. I mean, just think about the example we started off with. Not many people might have been convinced about mermaids existing off the bad side of the loan that when the documentary decided to frame things as a cover up of government organizations. They were already suspicious of government organizations for, you know, rational reasons, suddenly represented with something that fed into their fears and made them start believing in something totally irrational. And now that we've spoken about skills and mindsets, let's take, let's look at some helpful tools and resources. So using some of those skills and keeping the mindset as Brittany talked about these, what some of the resources that we have like a really great one is a research guide. And it's information and media literacy. And I'm going to talk about two specific resources that are inside the research guide that I think are going to be really helpful. The first one here is, you know, evaluating resources using the radar approach. Evaluating resources is going to be, you know, critical in a lot of our all classes in college and you know it can go long into your lifespan. So, you know, having this handy in your back pocket is a great idea. The radar stands for relevance authority date appearance and reason for writing. So relevance is, you know, is this information relevant to your assignment or what you're researching authority is going to be who is the author, you know, what tells you that they are authority authoritative on the topic that they're writing about date. And was this information published, and you know, is that important to your research appearance is you know what clues can you get from the appearance of the actual source doesn't have citations or references that kind of thing. And, you know reason for writing is going to be your why did this writer publish this information. And that can be that can go a bunch of different ways. So the article that's linked here goes more in depth into the kinds of questions that you can ask yourself using this approach but that's kind of the the general basics. The second one is just good for anyone because we live in the information age and being able to spot fake news is pretty helpful right now. So, some of the tips, it offers and spotting fake news are like considering the source, you know, take a look at that information that's coming from, or that is coming from. Gosh, take that information and look at it because there are a lot of like fake news sources out there. So you want to make sure that the sources, you know, credible. You want to read beyond the headline because like that's not going to tell you everything. They can be real inviting though. Check the author again, you know who is this person. What's the support. Can you find evidence elsewhere that's supporting what they're saying. And, you know, like real evidence, but like that's kind of the general consensus of general skills listed in this article about how to spot fake news. And that one also goes way like that those are only a few that like just touches the surface that article's got some really good other tips on how to do that. Thank you for that Sarah. And then I'm going to really quickly go over, you know, what you can do to help stop the spread of misinformation. So, you might be wondering what you can do moving forward. It can be a bit scary out there, especially if you feel like you have these tools, and you're living in a world of people who don't, and you don't know how to help the situation now. I know that because I've been there myself. But first of all, just know like your limits. There's some things you can't do. You can't force a person to believe in facts or reason or science, as much as you might want to. But there are some like small things you can do that can really make things better and impact things. First of all, make sure that you're always checking your own sources, especially if you're planning on sharing that information with others. If you want to stop the spread, like you have to practice what you preach. But first of all, don't share something that you know was Mr disinformation, even if you're just doing it as a joke. That brings us to this image that I thought was pretty obviously fake. Once during a class, I was exposed to something called the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, and I knew it was a fake right off the bat. I thought it was hilarious and had a funny story attached to it so I sent this information to my mom. I suddenly became an extreme advocate for the poor Northwest tree octopus and believed extremely fully in its plight. There's your lesson, just because you know it's a fake doesn't mean that your loved ones will. Once again, remember to stay calm. One of the main reasons by people start to get dug into misinformation when they're confronted with the fact that they fall in victim to it is that they get defensive. They're being called stupid, and they don't want to listen to you because of that. Nobody wants to listen to the person who's calling on stupid. So make sure you're not bringing that energy. If you have the space and the privilege approach the situation with care and sympathy. Remember this could just as easily be you and think about how you would best react. If the shoe was on the other foot. Next teacher left on some basic skills. After the tree octopus debacle, I knew I needed to teach my mom some of these, some of the stuff I've touched on its presentation, like checking multiple sources and knowing how to keep your cool when you presented with the topic that you're passionate about. It was a bit of an uncomfortable conversation to start off with her, but ultimately I wanted her to feel safe and in control. So why extended that invitation. And now she feels really confident when she looks for the news and different websites and she's not getting fooled anymore by tree octopi. Finally, learn to admit when you're wrong. Once again, we can all fall victim to miss or disinformation. So we're all capable of spreading it. If that happens to you, don't dig in or get defensive as much as you might want to. If this is something that you've posted and shared with other people, don't just delete the post and act like nothing happened. Admit your error, provide the correct information and some reliable sources, and then move forward as appropriate, which could then mean deleting the post or making it private. But you want to make sure that you actually address the misinformation burst. Be the example that we need in this landscape so that others can see your integrity and learn from it. And remember, once again, we're all human beings, none of us are infallible, but these small things can really help us create a better information climate moving forward. Okay. And that is the end of this session, we can stop the recording now. Please feel free.