THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF MISINFORMATION IN A DIGITAL AGE: EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES

The turmoil that has swept across the UK has its seeds in disinformation. The Southport stabbings of children by a 17 year old boy sparked outrage and strong emotions. As the identity of the boy could not be publicly disclosed for legal reasons, speculation quickly led to Islamophobic and xenophobic hypotheses, claiming he was Muslim and an immigrant, neither of which were actually true. 

The manner in which this misinformation was magnified and accelerated by social media led to the storm of violence of the last weeks that ripped through the UK. The false reports went totally viral: analysts have estimated that there were over 27 million impressions on social media of the claims. Controversial polemicist Andrew Tate reinforced the rumours on social media platforms and was viewed over 15 million times within under a week, claiming that the murders were committed by an illegal immigrant. 

Once this misinformation had exploded, Pandora’s box had been opened, the far right leapt on the opportunity to inflame the anger which by now had become a blowtorch flared up against innocent people, especially Muslims and immigrants. 

From an educational viewpoint, there are at least two fundamental perspectives to take into account here. The first is the age-old prerogative to live together peacefully, to have an open mind, and to be tolerant of other people. The mounting voice of hatred against foreigners that is characterised by far right politics in Europe and many other parts of the world is deeply concerning and we have to tackle it in the classroom. Not by proselytising and telling students what to think, by simply creating guardrails for discussion, by standing up for values that guarantee the equal value and each person and by always putting human dignity first. Young minds are impressionable and if we let online hate speech dominate their informal learning, the spiral will accelerate downwards. 

The second is linked to critical thinking in an age where technology exacerbates unreliable claims. As algorithms feed billions of people with what they want to hear and see as they spend hours and hours each day scrolling through social media, people refer to posts made by “influencers” who are often neither experts in the field nor have done any real research to substantiate their claims. A cornucopia of theories abound on social media, on personal motivation, health, diet, international politics, financial management, ancient history and the existence of extraterrestrials. Some of these theories are patently ridiculous, others dangerously untrue. This doesn’t stop them from having a considerable following on the web: we don’t have to go to the trouble to look things up in periodicals and published books, encyclopaedias or dictionaries, but instead of these tediously referenced sources, we can simply turn to whatever grabs our attention the quickest and is the most entertaining. In an effort to get likes and impressions, posts are often more focussed on sensationalism than truth.  

Artificial intelligence doesn’t help, creating deep fakes and blindly peddling misinformation if it has enough currency, such as the 2023 spoof which rattled the stock market. Since these statements can spread like wildfire and considering the speed with which a post can be made and read, not to mention the real-life consequences this can incur, giving our students guardrails to know how to work around such information is vitally important. 

Three essential points to develop in our curricula are:

1. Discernment and critical thinking, in particular online

Critical thinking, a staple of any good education, involves discernment when presented with information. Rather than simply believing what we read, or relying on an appeal to authorities or some other source to do the thinking for us, we have to be able to see the wood for the trees, hear the signal in the noise and, most essentially, detect exaggerations, warped propositions, propaganda and falsehoods. It’s easier said than done though and  takes a classroom culture and ongoing pedagogic modelling. I’m working with the  Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, a  group of researchers at the American University in Washington, on designing lessons to enhance critical thinking online for young people. Much of it is focussed on subtle cognitive skills such as  distinguishing one thing from another, detecting something that looks unlikely and examining sources of information carefully. This last area has become particularly salient as online information often has scurrilous, anonymous or clearly unreliable sources. 

2. Independent thought

The French philosopher René Descartes’ thesis was essentially that in order to be a critical thinker, you have to be autonomous, to think on your own and by your own. This was because in Descartes’ time, knowledge was mainly owned and distributed by authorities and the educational system was geared towards rote knowledge, leading people to build up encyclopaedic levels of knowledge but with little if any faculty for personal reflection. Some see Descartes as a pre-revolutionary, since for a people to rise up against monarchy, they need to have formed their own opinion, to have accessed information independently and made up their minds. The idea of thinking for yourself has become even more important in today’s world because technology assists the propagation of opinions to an unprecedented extent, exposing minds to the Wild West of arguments without factual basis, the fanfare of bandwagons and the cult of groupthink. Instead of blindly following the crowd, and being manipulated along the way, the critical thinker must be able to make up his, her or their own mind. Teaching for independent thinking involves giving students the agency to forge their own opinions, present their own ideas and defend themselves in curated discussions. It means that the teacher opens a space for reflection and appreciation and continually asks students to think, to give their point of view, to challenge, to question. 

3. Understanding how stereotypes are construed through social media

It is also important to have a critical and metacognitive appreciation of stereotype formation, socially and more specifically online. Stereotype formation can be viewed historically, neurobiologically, through literature, art, culture, geography, economics, philosophy, psychology and media studies. This can be done at age-appropriate levels but needs to inform learning in an ongoing reference to guiding questions about perspective, argument, evidence, beliefs and knowledge. It’s important not to expect this to happen in a Theory of Knowledge or Philosophy class alone: teaching about stereotypes and guarding against them is everybody’s business. My book Understanding Prejudice and Education suggests ways that this can be done at different age levels.

As we head back into our classrooms, let’s discuss these issues with our students and, together, work against the damage done by a lack of critical thinking in an age where much nullifies it, leading to scenarios that can quickly become tragic.

https://blog.tieonline.com/critical-thinking-in-an-age-of-digital-citizenship-has-never-been-so-important/