Today I attended a “Boot Camp on Fake News and Democracy” at Carleton University presented by the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom and the Carleton School of Journalism in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election.
At the end of the day, Sean McCarthy of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom said: “You are all influencers. Take what you have learned and share it with your network. You are citizen journalists. Have some humility. Journalism has been called the first draft of history. We should be honest about our shortcomings.”
And so I’m sharing:
First speaker on the world of fake news and online misinformation was BuzzFeed Editor Craig Silverman BuzzFeed.News who has been concerned about the topic for several years.
He described a recent case study on what to expect by describing the activities of yellowvestgroup.com. It caught his attention because he saw a new article on their Facebook with bad grammar, and a false headline associating the building of an Islamic Centre with the ending of work camps, when they had nothing to do with each other.
He was suspicious of a new page getting a lot of shares quickly, with private registration and a concerted effort to send people to the website. It was selling yellow vest decals, stickers, mugs and t-shirts. On the page was a photo of a woman in a yellow vest. He did a reverse image search and found she was a Scottish woman working in construction there. He tracked down craigio2778 in Alberta who worked in the oil sands. “He was really surprised when I found him and reached out to him,” said Silverman. “His view was he could do this stuff and he’d paid for privacy. We ended up publishing the story with the Toronto Star.”
Silverman said “we should be paying a lot of attention to what’s going on internally. There’s a lot of money to be made and hearts and minds to capture.”
His list on misinformation:
1. Misinformation comes in many forms, with many motivations, he said. He quoted a list of seven types of mis and dis information from FirstDraft: Satire or parody, misleading content, imposter content, fabricated content, false connection, false context and manipulated content.
2. It’s global. He gave the example of Macedonian teens being paid to spread Trump information on Facebook.
The platform WhatsApp has played a major role in inciting mob violence and vigilante justice.
3. It feeds off polarization and human bias; filter bubbles. Belonging is stronger than facts. You don’t realize you aren’t acting rationally.
4. Creation of state sponsored trolling operations. Private planning and public execution. Using social media privately to plan the creation and purchase of fake accounts to seed content targeting Facebook groups. The aim of creating distraction/white noise e.g. the Chinese government flooding material for strategic distraction. Gaming algorithms and signals with bots tweeting the same thing to make it trend on twitter.
5. Targeting and exploiting journalists is a “double victory.” It gets the information out and discredits the journalist when it’s uncovered. “Any oxygen is a win” for white nationalists. “Getting them to ‘buy the meme’.”
The weaponization of leaks.
So what do we do about it? These are the principles:
- Question everything in the digital environment.
- 2. Engage in content monitoring and network tracking.
- 3. Apply traditional reporting techniques to developing sources and check facts.
- 4. Recognize that actors with different motivations can produce the same signals. Don’t assume intent, prove it.
- Understand you are a target. Guard your attention and be strategic with exposure.
Tactics:
- Identify places where misinformation campaigns are hatched
- Constantly monitor key participants
- Collaborate wherever possible to spot trends
Further info on the link bit.ly/verificationtoolsandtips
In reply to a question, about if you’re a journalist “taken in”
“Own the error. Take a screen shot of your tweet before deleting it. Delete, acknowledge and apologize.”
Another question on how to avoid our own biases:
“Cultivate self-recognition if something makes you angry. Go and read content in reliable sources from a different point of view, and pay attention to your reaction.”
CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier lead a panel of academics and pollsters to discuss what is to come in 2019.
Ed Greenspan of the Public Policy Forum noted that the New York Times has more subscribers in Canada than the Globe and Mail. He said focus groups have taught him that people want “ a fire department of news.” They want it when it’s important, not every day. They say they get news from Facebook “unless it’s important. Then they go to news brands, anchors, columnists.” He said “we’re not out to protect newspapers. We’re out to protect journalism.”
David Coletto of Abacus Data said there is a big divide with under 45s getting news from Facebook and Twitter, and over 45s say TV is dominant. “People increasingly rely on their networks for their information. Emotion drives us to extremes and we believe more people have extreme views than do.” “This will be our first ‘digital first’ election. We need to hold our leaders accountable.” He said “the trust gap is really large. Every group believes their group is telling the truth and others aren’t.”
Kendall Anderson of The Samara Centre for Democracy said we have to expand civic literacy. “In all areas over the past 20 years, it’s decreasing.” “People in Canada are interested in politics. It’s up to the media to make sure they get good information.” On election day, the front page of “a newspaper I won’t mention” was totally opinion, she said. “That’s why people think they have to follow opinions they agree with.”
There was a Skype interview by Rosemary Barton with Fergus Bell of Pop Up News which promotes a collaborative newsroom. Bell said 90 organizations collaborated on the Mexican election, with the shared goal to fight misinformation. They ran the WhatsApp Channel Verificado 2018 and got 60,000 messages they responded to with a fact check. “We saw people share widely…We were a really strong resource in the election.”
How to do it? Ask ‘what slice of the pie can we one on together?’ Have an end date.
Last activity was a panel led by CBC’s Rosemary Barton on preparing for the upcoming campaign, with panelists Susan Delacourt from the Toronto Star, Mike De Souza of National Observer, Murad Hemmadi from The Logic, Michelle Richardson of the Ottawa Citizen and Lindsay Sample from The Discourse.
Said Michelle Richardson: “My role is closing the trust gap…Transparency so that when we make mistakes we own up to it. The second thing is bringing our audience into the work that we do…so they understand the critical process we go through. Lastly, to have a meaningful dialogue with our stakeholders so they look at our news with a more critical eye.”
As well, “we will be looking at the neighbourhood level.”
And “we have an obligation to push back and challenge when a politician says something that’s not true. We’re not a stenographer.”
Susan Delacourt worried about two tugs of war - the old way of covering the election on buses and planes, and now we cover platforms and not the advertising. We will have a focus on finding the fake news, the bots. “We are working with BuzzFeed to do this too.” She mentioned that Facebook will have an ad library where you can go and track the election ads.”
Their pre-election sum up:
Michelle: “Engaging in more of a dialogue, listening to what people are saying.”
Susan: “Resist inertia. What worked before, won’t work again.”
Murad: “Policy is what happens after the election. It has to be covered.”
Rosemary: “Determining how I can make sure I’m serving you well, and to listen to you.”
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