Speaker 1: Misinformation, it's destroying the internet and it's all your fault. Well, it's not your fault. It's your brain's fault, but I'll explain
Speaker 1: The internet is a glorious place, a free platform. Anyone can share their point of view, except the internet can be kind of terrible because everyone lies like all the time. Anyone with [00:00:30] a smartphone or Photoshop can just make up their own misinformation. And then the rest of us spread it around like mono at a frat party, Photoshop, a picture of a broken voting machine. And you can call an entire election into doubt, put on a lab coat and start talking about microchips in almond milk. And suddenly you have health misinformation that can be shared and re-shared on TikTok until millions of people have seen it. And this looks about my size either way, even if you are very online and think, you know better, the [00:01:00] bad news is your brain is kind of hardwired to believe it. Take this totally made up example that I just came up with. Did you know that according to research from Durden university, if you mix equal parts, gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate, you can make napalm the hydrocarbons react with the organic Citrix assets at freezing point, which makes an explosive. And no one in the government is telling you except turns out that's not true. In fact, it's a line from the classic film fight club.
Speaker 2: Did you know if you mixed equal parts of gasoline and frozen [00:01:30] or juice concentrate, you can make Napal,
Speaker 1: But add some basic Wikipedia research and some science words. And suddenly you have a piece of misinformation that can spread like wildfire, but it's not just influences on TikTok videos edited to make politicians look drunk, content farms, building entire fake news websites to sway elections, viral tweets, doctored photos. This stuff is everywhere and it's becoming a big problem. So why do we believe this junk? Well, just [00:02:00] like they told me when I tried to audition for jeopardy, it's rain letting you down. Let me explain it with psychology. One. You're more likely to believe the first thing you hear first impressions of a situation can be pretty hard to shake two. The elusory
Speaker 1: The elusory truth effect. The more something's repeated, the more likely you are to believe it. Even if it's false three, anytime we're overwhelmed [00:02:30] by information, we're less likely to believe experts and more likely to believe people like us. Even. It's not a book it's DVDs. Even if those people are telling us that the aliens built the pyramids uncle Gavin, please stop sending me those video. And for confirmation bias, something that aligns to our values or political ideology. Well, we're more likely to believe it. And then there are emotions. No, no, no, no, we can't. We can't use that song. I'm talking about your emotional response to misinformation. [00:03:00] If you see a tweet or a news headline that makes you really angry. Well, you're more likely to throw your analytical brain right out the window. And all of these things add up to make us really prone to the misinformation that we see online. So if even the best of us can fall victim to this kind of stuff, then how do we spot misinformation and stop it from spreading? Because I have bad news, the tech companies aren't gonna do it all. Here are five takeaways first up, just because you see it online, doesn't make it true. Misinformation [00:03:30] is used to so political discord to make money or even get clouts. So be skeptical. Number two, take a breath. This is information is designed to get us emotionally reactive. So we share it quickly. So make sure you stop and think
Speaker 1: Number three, verify your source. Make sure you actually click on the link on that social post. And then look at the URL of the website. You're on. Look for things like quotes and links out to other reliable new is sources [00:04:00] on the news websites you visit and make sure you don't get your news from your uncle. Gavin four, do a reverse image search on Google. This is a great way to check when and where a photograph was taken. Misinformation often uses real images, but taken completely out of context. And finally, if you can't bear something, then don't share it. Or if you wanna debunk it, then make sure you don't just retweet or repost the link that could just build engagement and feed the algorithm, which boosts [00:04:30] the misinformation even more with everything that's going on in the world right now, the stakes for stopping misinformation have never been higher, but we can all play our part. I'm Claire Riley for CNET. Good evening. And tonight on we
Speaker 3: Are talking about.
