NewsLiteracyPlaybook - Flipbook - Page 16
History of Misinformation
Yet the attempts to sow discord cannot be gauged
just by numbers, according to the Tow Center’s
Albright, who characterized the addition of
propaganda and lies as drops of misinformation
that pollute the entire information ecosystem in
unseen but real ways. Here are some examples of
information warfare fueled by the internet:
In Mexico, two men were attacked
and burned to death by a mob in 2018
after false rumors began circulating
on WhatsApp about the presence of
child kidnappers in a remote village. Troll networks
on Twitter — some run by bots, some by real persons
— have posted death threats aimed at journalists.
In Myanmar, Buddhist extremists
spread rumors on Facebook that set
off a deadly riot in 2014; three years
later, hate speech on Facebook led to
ethnic cleansing against the country’s
Rohingya minority.
In Ukraine, where tensions have been
high since Russia annexed Crimea
in 2014, YouTube videos designed
to discredit pro-Ukrainian forces
and stir up conflict were released in
2017. They were created by a pro-Russia propaganda
outfit in Ukraine that worked with Russia’s Internet
Research Agency.
In India, rumors that included
doctored images and text messaging
in 2012 led to violent protests and
sent 300,000 citizens fleeing in fear
of attacks. In 2018, two dozen people
were killed by mobs who had followed
WhatsApp viral rumors.
In Nigeria, inflammatory photos
and false information on Facebook
contributed to more than a dozen
killings in 2018 in an area already riven
by ethnic violence. Facebook disabled the account
of a man in the United Kingdom who was spreading
these falsehoods.
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In the Philippines, a former
senator and critic of President
Rodrigo Duterte was imprisoned
following a series of viral hoaxes
that spread on Facebook, which
Duterte encouraged.
In the United Kingdom,
thousands of bots linked to
Russia’s Internet Research
Agency sent messages on Twitter
with the hashtags #Brexit and
#ReasonsToLeaveEU on June
23, 2016 — the day Britain voted
whether to continue its membership
in the European Union.
In Brazil, WhatsApp was used
to spread misinformation and
disinformation in advance of the
presidential election and runoff
in 2018. One Brazilian newspaper
revealed a coordinated campaign
that would have sent millions of false and misleading
WhatApp messages to voters a week before the
runoff.
For their part, tech companies insist that they
are neutral platforms and struggle to maintain
a balance between that stance and making the
types of editorial choices that news organizations
must make in what to allow online. Each platform
periodically announces a way in which it is trying
to tighten security: For example, in October
2018, a month before the U.S. Senate and House
elections, Facebook invited reporters to see what
it called its “election war room”; that same month,
Twitter announced its new attempts to combat
disinformation. Two months before, both Twitter
and Facebook said they had removed hundreds of
fake pages and accounts that originated in Iran and
Russia and were attempting to meddle in politics in
the United States and the United Kingdom.
In addition, Facebook has expanded its worldwide
fact-checking capabilities by partnering with
independent fact-checking groups certified by the