JotCast | Panel Discussion: How Can We Combat Fake News and Digital Misinformation

Panel Discussion: How Can We Combat Fake News and Digital Misinformation

Anushree Jonko

9:06

Hello and welcome to the panel discussion on how we can combat fake news and digital misinformation. Yasodora Cordova, Senior Fellow, Data & Misinformation at Digital Harvard Kennedy School and Shorenstein Center, Angie Holan, Editor in Chief, Politifact and Deb Roy, Associate Professor, MIT Media Lab; Co-Founder and Chairman, Cortico took the stage with The Atlantic’s Adrienne Green to discuss.

9:17

Adrienne Green starts the conversation by asking whether average Americans are just as preoccupied with fake news as other communities.

9:18

Angie Holan says, I think that's a great question and yes. People have different definition of fake news but a lot of people understand the fake news as a fabricated news on social media. But then, there are stuff like you don't disagree with the premise of the coverage of an event. At the end of the day noone likes to be fooled

9:21

Deb Roy answers," over the course of ten years we found tweets that were fake. Fake news spreads more than true news."

DR adds, bots contribute a lot towards fake news.

9:25

AG asks Holan,"does fake news have an impact on you?"

9:26

AH: I think it has an emotional aspect. If you say something false they immediately come back and question a lot. But it does seem to have a tremendous emotional basis. When we started, sharing on social media was not a thing. It was all email threads. It'd spread via email only. But that is the same spirit we see here.

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9:28

AG asks "do you think fake news is a human problem or person driven?"

9:31

AG asks Yasodora, "how can social media companies participate in fighting this problem?"

9:32

AH says," I think we have seen major platforms evolving a lot. I would argue that they're gatekeepers. And they have opted for it. I think previously they wanted to say they're neutral. But now it's not a pretty picture. The Alex Jones content being removed was a positive step, for example, for hate speech.

9:33

AH adds, "I think with hate speech it gets a tricky for these companies. But at the end of the day, the person who does this is put out of the platform."

9:34

AG asks, "all social media now has divisive toxic polar features. How can we improve it?"

9:35

AH says, "I think twitter is a really interesting place to have a civil discourse on. If you look at my twitter feed, I don't use it much as it is very much toxic especially for women. So, I think some people will leave those spaces if that's how they continue. Twitter can do much better. Facebook has a fairly extensive programme to reduce fake news."

9:37

DR adds, "There a lot of new experiments that are underway. Building new networks are the thing of the present. Building up networks of trust is important. In research we do fact checking and that is extremely important. In lot of social networks it's easy to self separate and disconnect ourselves."

AG: How does one determining truth from false news?

9:39

AH answers, "I do think that truth and civility go hand in hand. Some of the vicious things we see are factually inaccurate and so we need to put more emphasis on truth and facts and evidence"

9:40

AG: Instead of policing content for social media companies, are they working on giving us some help?

9:41

DR: There are technical possibilities and there are a lot of platforms working on behaviour response. If people are flagging a source then the manual checks confirms that it was flagged for a reason.

AH: I'm not advocating policing. I'm definitely a first amendment fan. I'm arguing for a minimum standard. The things I've seen with our work on Facebook and Google, there are things they can do. As consumers we need minimum standards on the content they permit on the platforms.

9:42