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Information Ethics and Combating Misinformation: The Media Environment

This guide consists of resources and information to help teach everyone how to critically evaluate information, and combat the spread of misinformation online.

Prior to the Internet age, information was disseminated by professionals like print and broadcast journalists. Reporting was refined and checked for accuracy by fact-checkers and copy editors. Print and broadcast media outlets were often locally-owned, with ownership having a stake in the communities they served. 

In the Internet age, and especially on social media, everyone is an editor, and most people are not very good editors. The only regulation of content comes from content moderators employed by tech companies, who currently face minimal regulations regarding what kind of content is shared on their platforms. 

This lack of regulation follows a trend of de-regulation by the federal government since the 1980s. Starting in 1949, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted the Fairness Doctrine, which required licensed broadcasters to present fair and balanced coverage of controversial issues. This remained in effect until the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. 

Tech companies receive a similar hands-off treatment. A section of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 says "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

The vast majority of false information online comes primarily from three sources:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Memes

Increasingly, AI is being used to create this sort of content. AI is incapable of telling the difference between truth and false information. AI has also made it easier to spread false information. As of October of 2024, people can catch articles written by AI beccause of grammatical mistakes and errors in sentence structure. But we should be prepared for the technology to substantially improve.

Because social media algorithms provide you with content it believes you are interested in, it is easy to fall into one of two traps, or both. These traps are the filter bubble and the echo chamber. 

A filter bubble is when you don't hear people who have different perspectives on issues. This can lead to ending up in what is called an echo chamber, where you don't trust people whose beliefs differ from yours.

Remember: 

  1. There is no technological solution to these problems.
  2. Take into account the social context of a social media site and its content, not just how to use the site and create content. 
  3. People find and make meaning of information based on networks of trust and belonging, thus the tendency of some to fall victim to echo chambers and filter bubbles. 

Sources: Brooklyn Public Library, Britannica Academic, Age of Misinforamtion webinar

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