America is in the midst of a huge disinformation crisis! What is the reason for it and what is the solution?

 America is in a deep disinformation crisis! Whether it is related to the Presidential election 2020 or the coronavirus pandemic 2020, the disinformation is continuing into the new year and may have long-term implications! No amount of fact repetition seems to be useful in curbing this misinformation! Donald Trump started fake claims about election fraud and there are also a lot of varied rumors related to the covid-19! All are continuing and do not seem to show any signs of ebbing! 

Donald Trump and the impact of his false claims

Donald Trump had started a fake birther conspiracy theory and this helped him win the Presidential election 2016! Now he is high-pitch about election fraud. Experts feel that despite repeating facts to the public, it might not fix the misinformation so easily. The misinformation has taken deep roots and will require quite an intense effort to uproot it. 

Disinformation abundance [Source: Medium]

This has made people begin to doubt democracy. They have begun to suspect the critical infrastructure of society. Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft (group to combat disinformation) states: 

“What does it look like if we don’t have a shared sense of reality?” 

“We’ve seen more conspiracy theories moving mainstream. There’s an increasing number of people who do not believe in the critical infrastructure of society. Where does that end?”

Reason for so much extensive disinformation

The misinformation is partly due to the rising social media use and engagements. People believe and forward stories without fact-checking. This is disastrous for society. And there has been an emergence of media outlets that are owned by alternative rightwing people. There is no or minimal investment in public media to counteract these mushrooming media outlets. Local news outlets have also shrunk. The local newspapers have been replaced by online media outlets that spread this false information. 

Fake news galore [Source: BBC]

Also, click here to read more on Joe Biden's diverse White House team 

Thus the media ecosystem of the USA has become foul. This is unlike that in the UK where many people still tune in and believe the public broadcaster, BBC. It is also the most reliable news outlet in the whole world. According to Kate Starbird from the University of Washington feels that Donald Trump has been dealing in participatory disinformation. He spreads false news and then also inspires his supporters to do the same and catches this information and throws it back at the public. 

Participatory disinformation

Such participatory disinformation is actually stickier than the top-down propaganda. This is because the blind and staunch supporters get positive reinforcement when they see their own ideas repeated by their leader. This is also happening in India where a number of blind faithful supporters of the current PM Modi are happily spreading and furthering fake news for him. They are being exploited and used by the PM but are enjoying it. 

When their social media platforms were getting monetary gains due to the excessive use of their media platforms, the companies Also were tardy in curbing the spread of this fake news. Hence, Donald continued to rant on Twitter and Facebook. The companies only began to curb it when the election was extremely near. 

Even if a fact is published counteracting the false news, people less believe it because they have lost faith in the system which is the doing of people like Trump and Modi. But throwing facts at people does not help because their brains are now shut. People already have a lot of hatred against system and people and races and this further prevents them from listening to facts. 

Personal and individual talks might help with the engagement of people that people like and love. But people have also become immune to facts and do not want to know that they have been fooled. This is another emotional hurdle that needs to be addressed in changing the wrong notions of people.