Age of disinformation
Introduction
Disinformation can be described as information that is not true but has been created and circulated. The current age is referred to as the age of information, as there is so much information that is available to the people. The information explosion that has been seen over the past several decades has made it difficult to differentiate between information that is wrong and the correct information. The creators of information are increasing each day, which means there is new information that is created each day by people who know about a topic and also those without even a hint of the facts surrounding the issue. Disinformation has been developed and has grown widely due to the availability and ease of access to the internet. The current age has made the use of the internet as the main form of communication. This has given people the chance to create information on topics without having facts and proven information. The created information can be accessed by anyone using the internet around the world. On a topic, one can get thousands of articles that have been written about it (Bowers and Zittrain). Differentiating between the correct information on the topic and the false information becomes difficult, and this led to the development of the concept of disinformation age.
Disinformation age has been fueled by many factors such as freedom of expression and democracy, digitization and socialization, anonymity, personalization, and also lack of regulation (Born). These factors are the leading causes of the disinformation age.
Freedom of expression and democracy
The constitutions of many countries guarantee the citizens the democracy and that they have the freedom to access and create information. This guarantee by the laws has led to the rise of many people who have no authority on a topic to write about it and publish. The digital publications lack the facts about the subject and are misleading. Freedom of expression has led to many people believing they have the right to write on any topic they can despite not having enough information and facts on it, which leads to them producing misleading articles. Freedom of expression has protected the publications as they are published as personal opinions, but they are available to anyone in the world and may mislead them on the topic. The availability of the many articles makes it hard to differentiate the ones containing correct information and those that have false information.
Digitization and socialization
A characteristic that is found in the current age is the use of digital means to create and publish and also circulate it through the internet. This, combined with the circulation through the social groups, make it easy to spread information that is not correct and verified. When compared to the information age, people received information from reliable sources who acted as the guardians of knowledge. The current age circulates information without caring to verify the validity and accuracy of it and also the authenticity of the facts that are in the article. Socialization has been used to distribute false information by people who are interested in having more visitors on their website as they know the gossip and incorrect information will lead to more clicks and fame on the post (González-Pérez). This has led to misinforming huge masses and causing harm, such as political tension between groups and also bad feelings about leaders.
Anonymity
Sieving through the internet, one finds so many articles that have been published by anonymous writers. The ability to write anonymously has led to the production of false information as there is no way to verify the authenticity of the information as you cannot reach the writer. Publishing materials online and being anonymous has been used by many people who produce false information as it hides their identity, and they cannot be reached. The materials spread widely, and there is no way that the publisher can be reached for comments. Anonymity has been used in the production of information that is meant to sway the public opinion and also favor some people who need sympathy.
Personalization
In the past, the channels of passing information required research and verification of the facts before they were published. The current era has seen the rise of many publishers who use simple methods of testing and end up providing information that targets a specific group. The target of a group has made the production and sharing of false information more rampant. Internet content creators use bots and other methods to circulate the information they have created. By using bots and other technology-based methods, they can reach many people over a short time (Sosulski and Tyckoson, 178). The people who receive the information lack the skills and the knowledge to verify the authenticity of the information they have collected. This has led to divided beliefs and feelings on a topic, which mostly is the aim of the producers of fake stories.
Lack of proper regulation
The current modes of publications, such as social media and blogs, are self-regulating, unlike traditional media such as print that were regulated well. The self-regulation of the modern methods of publishing has been widely credited with the rise of the disinformation age as it has led to an information explosion. The information explosion at the turn of the century saw the internet become the primary mode of communication, and many people produced materials that were posted on it. The self-regulation of the internet means that the people publishing follow their own rules, and they have the freedom to publish on any topic they want to even when they lack the facts about it or the correct information. This has seen the rise of many materials on the internet on the same topic that are contradictory, and it makes it harder for users to know the correct information from the false information.
Conclusion
The disinformation age has been fueled by the lack of ways to control and verify information that is produced each day and also the knowledge of the writers on the topic. Further, the availability of the internet and its accessibility from almost anywhere in the world has made it easy to produce information that has its facts not verified, and circulate it all over in a short time. The disinformation age has seen many people get the wrong information on a subject, some of which is produced with the main aim of swaying the public opinion or is biased to favor a situation or a political leader. Lack of knowledge and skills on how to verify the validity and accuracy of the information has been seen as the leading cause of people using and circulating false information.
Works cited
Born, Kelly. “Six Features of the Disinformation Age.” StopFake, 9 Oct. 2017, www.stopfake.org/en/six-features-of-the-disinformation-age/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
Bowers, John, and Jonathan Zittrain. “Answering Impossible Questions: Content Governance in an Age of Disinformation.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 14 Jan. 2020, 10.37016/mr-2020-005.
González-Pérez, Yared. “Disinformation in the Information Age.” European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 24 Jan. 2020, p. ejhpharm-2020-002213, 10.1136/ejhpharm-2020-002213.
Sosulski, Nicolette Warisse, and David A. Tyckoson. “A Reference for That: Reference in the Age of Disinformation.” Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 3, 16 Mar. 2018, p. 178, 10.5860/rusq.57.3.6602.