How bad is social-media misinformation going to get?
Editor’s note: In this Future View, students discuss social media and misinformation. Mass propaganda has infected the world for generations. In the 1920s and 1930s, firebrands such as Father Charles E.
Coughlin, an antisemitic priest, plagued the radio. Modern misinformation differs only with respect to the platform and the quantity produced. The solution is unchanged: Misinformation gets washed away when people have open dialogues and critical discussions with those who read different sources and hold different opinions.
The core issue is that people aren’t engaging in the conversations that are necessary to dispel misinformation. The increasing atomization of society—caused by political polarization, isolating lifestyles and the growth of ever more specific subcultures—makes it harder for people to go out into the world and talk to one another. Instead, they get trapped on social media by echo chambers that keep people from interacting directly with one another.
These problems are influencing swaths of society, not because of any single social-media app but because of continuing social trends. Governments cannot regulate this away. At best, all they can do is remind people to step outside and talk to each other.
—Evan Carlisle, Ohio University, mathematics Misinformation poses an escalating problem that government officials and tech companies must face. Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology highlight the alarming rate at which false information spreads, with fake news circulating up to 10 times faster than accurate reporting. Americans increasingly support action against misinformation.
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