Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:04
MDM: misinformation, disinformation, malinformation | CAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COMBAT THE ONSLAUGHT? Do they want to?
In 2017, I taught media literacy to the general public. I was in eight different states, ten different cities over a course of a month, and I had a curriculum that was fun and engaging, and it hopefully lit up some of the minds of people who didn't understand what it really meant to use critical thinking to assess the information
Calvin Johnson
@CalvinoTech · 3:20
Propaganda publicizes or it showcases a political cause or a point of view, whereas misinformation seeks to put out incorrect or misleading information. Both are very crucial topics or very crucial terms to the US government. Propaganda can be either negative and positive. It's a double edged sword. It just depends on the motivation of the institution or government that's releasing the particular message. If you think back in time, let's think back to the World War One
Theo Seibold
@Thatoneweirdo · 4:49
And we all know that anyone from politicians to I mean, just about anybody has the capacity or can take a story and put a different angle to it in such a way to where it benefits their cause or it's written or said or transcribed in a certain way to where it lacks certain information, especially in the media, and I should say newspapers, because this is an old type of saying never let the truth get in the way of a good story
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Calvin Johnson
@CalvinoTech · 4:47
I wrote a paper called Understanding, Trust and Disinformation, and I wanted to try to find out why people trust disinformation. And eventually I figured out or at least I attached the social exchange theory to my research. And that's how I conducted my entire paper. I developed these three phases or whatnot that went through all the different levels of trust. But ideally, I think theo summary, I guess, in summary of this particular paper, is that I figured out that most people trust false information
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:52
Hey, Theo and Calvin. I'd love this back and forth, and I wanted to thank both of you. You know, it really seems like there's a theme here of empowering people with knowledge that's, like, the first obvious line of offense and defense is education and going into communities, and you using that baseline of influencers in the local communities
Calvin Johnson
@CalvinoTech · 4:46
We are the first line of defense, especially when we build our knowledge surrounding truthful information and spreading truthful and combating false information. So I guess that's the answer for this particular question. It's been amazing conversation overall, and I hope to continue to spark up this particular topic throughout both this particular platform and then as well as any other platform
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:37
And I hope that everyone looks at misinformation as a problem because I think sometimes we think it's a partisan issue, right? Like some people bend towards louder voices than smarter voices, and that's a big issue. And I hope we can find some unity around this challenge and everyone take it as seriously as you are with your studies and with your eventual work. So I just want to be really clear that your leadership is important
Theo Seibold
@Thatoneweirdo · 4:52
But I also know that just because there's that level of disagreements doesn't mean that the conversation should be going out the window. And I think it can be very tricky. But I also like to sit down with people. And I think part of it for me also comes back to so many things in this country we get very separated on. But I think it affects us all