![]() ![]() It is problems like these that motivated us to pick misinformation as our Word of the Year in 2018. And in part because of such frequent incidents, it is a hot topic of debate if big tech companies like Facebook and Google should be responsible for stopping the spread of misinformation-or even if they even can without violating the First Amendment freedom of speech rights of their users. On social media, users have-as just one tiny instance-shared stories about dolphins and swans swimming in the canals of Venice without checking if those stories are true (they weren’t). Today, misinformation spreads very easily thanks to technology. Misinformation doesn’t care about intent, and so is simply a term for any kind of wrong or false information. But don’t fear: we’re not calling the fact police on you! The key, here, is that you unwittingly spread false information around you didn’t mean to, or even might have thought the information was true. For example, say a party starts at 8pm, but you forget or misread the invitation and tell your friends it starts at 9pm, you are supplying them with misinformation. If you are spreading around information that is wrong but you don’t know it is wrong, then you are, well, technically, spreading misinformation.Īnd when we say misinformation is an everyday thing, we mean it. We tell our friends something we heard on TV or saw on social media that wasn’t really true. ![]() We human beings-news flash-are not perfect. The spread of misinformation happens often in our everyday lives. Misinformation is “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead.” Put a flag in the second half of this definition it will be important later. Let’s get the facts on misinformation vs. But behind that one letter hides the critical distinction between these confusable words: intent. These two words, so often used interchangeably, are merely one letter apart. Now more than ever, we are experiencing the spread of two forms of wrong information: misinformation and disinformation. Like a virus, wrong information can spread, causing what’s been called an infodemic. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. It can be a literal life-saver-when it’s true.
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