Mention the word, ‘propaganda,’ and most people immediately think of a large, government campaign to spread lies on a particular subject. In the post-truth world, you may unknowingly be spreading state-sponsored misinformation as recent events show.
The Russia-Ukraine war is the latest example of the power of social media to influence public opinion, but it also shows that many people are vulnerable to emotional manipulation.
Misinformation is where false information is inadvertently shared as true, whereas disinformation is where false information is intentionally shared as true.
Often, the sources don’t care about the truth as long as they provoke the desired response in the audience. The goal is to induce sympathy or rouse anger. The end justifies the means, or so it seems.
Many of the pictures and videos circulating online at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine were not of events on the ground. A video showing a fleet of combat jets approaching a Ukrainian city was revealed to be from an air show held in Moscow, Russia. Pictures from riots as far back as 2014 were presented as images from the latest invasion. A social media account purporting to be that of Ukraine’s president was exposed as fake.
Pictures from past earthquakes and videos of industrial explosions in China were posted to depict the events in Ukraine. Celebrities and media organisations shared these social media posts with their followers and inadvertently contributed to misinformation. Images from video games have also been falsely presented depicting ongoing events.
BEYOND THE TRUTH
The Cambridge English dictionary describes propaganda as information, ideas, opinions or images often only giving one part of an argument. The purpose of propaganda is to influence public opinions by emphasising only one way of looking at the facts. While propaganda has existed throughout history, post-truth is a more recent development.
Post-truth (beyond truth), according to the Cambridge dictionary, is the tendency for people to accept or reject ideas based on emotions and beliefs, rather than the facts. Former US President Donald Trump rode to the White House on a post-truth wave as his supporters got swayed by conspiracy theories that provoked fear about the future.
A similar post-truth phenomenon appeared when Covid-19 emerged. Some people dismissed Covid-19 as nothing more than a bad flu. By rejecting the scientific evidence of Covid-19, Covid-skeptics declined to comply with disease control measures (such as wearing masks) and have refused Covid vaccines. There was so much misinformation surrounding Covid-19 that it became an “infodemic”.
WHY IT’S SO EASY
In the social media age, the power to misinform lies at your fingertips. Social media makes it easy for anyone to find a picture or a video on the Internet, edit it, then share it as breaking news. No special skills are needed. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and WhatsApp have been used to a large extent in this way.
Twenty years ago, editing a video required a powerful computer, expensive software and someone trained in using the software. Today, anyone with a smartphone can take videos, edit them, add a soundtrack and upload the video to a global audience within minutes. Downloading and manipulating a video is not difficult with a smartphone.
The ease of creating and sharing multimedia content is a challenge to the public, which gets flooded with thousands of photos and videos designed to mislead. Malicious forces use this overwhelming amount of misinformation to sway public opinion.
Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC journalist reporting on disinformation, conspiracy theories, cults and extremism, is among a global community of researchers exposing online fakes. Shayan says it is customary for old or false footage to go viral during a conflict. “Please try to verify or check the source of the footage you see before sharing,” he advised on his Twitter handle.
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
A viral image of two Ukrainian children saluting a military convoy is from 2016. The image was shared widely as a symbol of bravery amidst the Russian invasion. World leaders and celebrities, including a former Prime Minister of Sweden, shared the picture with millions of their followers. Shayan says TikTok is becoming a major platform for misinformation as false and misleading videos rack up tens of millions of views each day.
Many social media users passing off old content as current events are doing it for clout. As observations of TikTok show, a well-placed video can generate millions of views and attract a large number of followers. It is not only individual social media users who benefit from fake news. Governments are increasingly a source of misinformation.
A 2021 report for the European Parliament confirms that large disinformation campaigns are often linked to governments, political parties and the military, and with consultancy firms working for those bodies. The infamous Cambridge Analytica was a consultancy firm accused of manipulating data in favour of Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential election. The following year, the firm was allegedly hired by one of the political parties competing in Kenya’s general elections.
PROTECTING YOURSELF
With so much deception out there, how do you separate truth from lies? In the days when the only source of news was mainstream media, audiences could trust that the news had been checked by a team of reporters and editors. With online publishing, anybody anywhere can post anything.
According to Factcheck.org, an online advocacy organisation, the first step in protecting yourself from misinformation is to check the source of the content. Be careful of fake websites made to look like those of well-known media organisations. Look beyond the headlines and read articles before sharing them with your followers. Headlines can be misleading, even in legitimate news stories. Do an online search of the author to find out any useful information about that person.
Check the date, too. As the latest conflict in Ukraine shows, old pictures and videos are being posted as breaking news. One can now upload a picture into a search engine and find out when it first appeared on the Internet. Some smartphones can listen to sounds then connect to a search engine to show where else the audio clip was posted.
The general rule of thumb is that if something reported on social media does not appear on mainstream websites, it probably didn't happen.