Find out why trust levels worldwide have been plummeting insidiously, in pace with the explosion of social media. Do something quick!
Have any one of us ever been guilty of forwarding or re-forwarding sensational stories received in our social media platforms — without checking the veracity or newsworthiness of the content?
Some may proclaim: “I don’t have time to check every story, but when a juicy one comes along, I want to be the first to spread it along and let others figure out whether it is fake news — something useful that could actually save lives!” Little did we know that a careless act of sending out dubious information/news could cause hundreds of people to get into trouble after acting on the “tipoff”.
Others may receive an old chain-mail (or the social media equivalent) about miraculous health tips that have been made to appear current, and then forward it to dozens of friends and relatives in the belief that “It’s all with good intentions. What’s the worst that health tips can cause to my contact list? Besides, most of them seldom even read or believe half of what they receive from me daily anyway!”
The hard truth about good intentions
Not many young people may know about chain letters of the 80s and 90s. In those days, people would receive unsolicited letters, postcards and other forms of communication containing testimonials about some miracle product, practice or ritual that could attract riches and good luck. Fail to forward the message to 10 friends and they were promised bad luck and untold misery.
After decades of circulation, many chain mail content were still actively being forwarded until the internet age made such physical letters less popular. Hordes of people throughout those years had suffered nervous breakdowns and self-induced negative incidents — just from the guilt of stopping the chain of good intentions meant to spread worldwide, or from myriad reasons only known to their circles of friends.
As the proverb goes: “The road to misery is paved with good intentions”. In the digital age, the same urge in humans to experiment with content that they want to spread to the world is causing millions of people to seek gratification on social media.
Tricks of the Urge
Has anyone come across a social media post where a 20-year-old hoax (since proved to be false) is modernized and adorned with fake/doctored photos and recirculated as current news? At the worst case, instead of just ordinary jokes or hoaxes, real lives were threatened by such behavior. During the Israel-Gaza conflict in May 2021, old and manipulated images were shared by both sides to support their narratives. These images were often taken out of context or from previous conflicts.
Other techniques used by mischievous and irresponsible people online include:
- Taking an actual factual story and sensationalizing it with one’s own irresponsible interpretation: For example, there was a news story (with video footage) about an experimental robot roaming a town square to capture video proof of people littering or smoking where they were not supposed to. Someone took just the video and reposted it on a social media group with his/her own headline suggesting that in future, robots will be used by the authorities to “vaccinate people” on the streets — in case of any pandemic.
- Taking actual sensational news of the past and making it sound current: Suppose a public figure made a sensational claim in public, and this was captured on video five years ago. In that time, the claim would have had its effect, actions would have been taken to correct any injustice or inaccuracies. The same video is now irrelevant, outdated or even harmful if presented as news now.
However, we see people reposting such videos without the original date stamp and description of the original incident. These people also do not post any comments to accompany the old footage, in case they get caught and incriminated socially by their forum peers. So, the post goes on a chat group, riles up some members who have been misled into thinking the incident is current (and taking some action such as venting to their local authorities), and a whole enormous chat thread and argument ensues — for nothing. - Mindlessly forwarding any sensational story on a social media group — without triple-verifying the accuracy and balance of the story: This is usually done by the person posting it without stating his/her own views or comments about the story, why it was being reposted, or what recipients are supposed to do or react about the story. This is likely a technique used by trolls and other irresponsible people who have a psychosis about the sheer power of sharing any content they like to evoke emotions, to gain attention, to feel authoritative and ‘knowledgeable’, or simply to test how far they can get away with breaking chat group etiquette and rules.
- Knowingly posting irrelevant/fake news content, with cheeky caveats: Such rule breakers come clean immediately, claiming it is done in mockery or as a social commentary — and request moderators to delete the content if the former do not also find the irrelevant and fake news “worth a laugh” now that we all know it is fake. So, if we post fake news that everyone is supposed to know it is fake, that makes it OK to go on spreading fake news?
- Creating and nurturing echo chambers — whether intentionally or not: Some chat groups start out with good intentions, but can become so popular or sensational that sycophant members or moderators start rooting out diversity and playing up only posts that echo the same root mission of the chat group. Eventually, even ordinary information posted in the chat group will get misinterpreted to align with the group interest, turning that information into hearsay and disinformation to newer members not already familiar with the echo culture.
- Reposting part of a legitimate story on an established media website, and creating a misleading headline about those excerpts, to completely misrepresent the story on a social media group for their own ends: This is a self-explanatory type of social media misconduct, an perpetrators usually get away with it by punctuating these fake content with lots more of faultless content. This is sneaky and difficult for moderators to keep track, unless all chat group members are vigilant and report each and every transgression immediately. So now, even real news can be made into fake news by social media users — whether intentionally or otherwise. Let us all accept zero tolerance of social media misconduct before it gets out of control…
Psychological tricks at play
What’s the big deal with being caught propagating fake news unintentionally on social media, some may ask. Just slap them on their digital wrists and move along! If they re-offend, suspend them for a week and just add another rule of conduct for all members to abide by.
Other techniques used by mischievous and irresponsible people online include:
- Such misconduct has a lasting effect on chat group members’ level of trust in everything: According to the American Psychological Association, frequent exposure to misinformation can lead to increased polarization and decreased trust in institutions. This means such people may indirectly be harmed in the way they make decisions that ultimately affect their lives negatively.
- Allowing offenders to continue misconduct can detract from the true, positive power of social media: Countless stories of miraculous human cohesiveness and single-mindedness in helping crisis victims and the unfortunate are a testament to the immense positive power of social media. However, with entropy eating into all that goodness, if social media leaders and moderators do not clamp down on “innocent offenders” of fake news propagation, how will they be able to deal with the even more insidious state-sponsored social media professionals paid to cause damage online in adversary nations?
- Experts from Psychology Today have pointed out that constant exposure to casual misinformation attempts online can ironically, make them even more susceptible to falling for false information. This could be one factor behind the success of social engineering attacks. Even clickbait content now ubiquitous on the web are part of this psychological phenomenon. For the sake of profitability, even established media institutions have retained such content without any moral responsibility.
- Proliferation of a social contagion: A lax attitude towards the propagation of misinformation (unintentional or otherwise) can spread like wildfire, where individuals unconsciously mimic the behavior of offenders in all aspects of communications — to gain thrills, catharsis or simply manic gratification. If some members frequently share false information, others may start to do the same, either out of a desire to fit in or because they see it as acceptable.
Having touched only just a small surface area of social media offenses, this writer hopes readers who are interested to delve deeper will research further and start activism in rooting out this destructive behavior on social media.
