Debunking disinformation

Al Ahram Weekly

Azza Radwan Sedky

Tuesday 20 Aug 2024

Disinformation can have horrendous repercussions and create unrest in the communities it targets, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

A case in point about the dangers of disinformation is what happened in Britain recently when a knifeman went on a stabbing campaign in the seaside town of Southport killing three young girls and injuring ten others.

British law does not name suspects under the age of 18, so a tweeted lie triggered the kerfuffle. A post on X pinned the perpetrator as Ali Al-Shakati, a migrant of Muslim faith. Within a few hours, disinformation on social media had spun into 30,000 mentions on X alone when in fact a 17-year male born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda and with no links to Islam had been the culprit.

The disinformation on the tragedy went on to spark anti-immigration fury and far-right riots against Muslims and asylum seekers in Britain.

Despite having been told who the real culprit was, the rioters persisted in targeting mosques and hostels housing asylum seekers. There was no turning back for them, for the disinformation had sunk in and could not be deflated. The reverberations are still being felt today.

Disinformation is in no way equivalent to misinformation. It is far worse. Misinformation, though harmful, can occur accidentally or with no intended malice, while disinformation is deliberate in its intent to propagate lies and inaccuracies and sway public opinion.  

Examples can include rumours passed off as facts, downright lies, fabricated stories, targeted defamation, hoaxes, and pranks. But the intention is always the same: to spread disgruntlement, tarnish characters, and discredit the authorities.

Most of the time disinformation also advances certain agendas and mindsets and manipulates victims to think in a particular way and even to react in a certain way, as was seen with the far-right rioters in Britain.

Social media has allowed online disinformation to flourish, and when innocent souls rely on disinformation, the choices they make are faulty and not in their or others’ best interests. This is especially the case if they pass such disinformation along to others, only to allow it to spread even further.

Both “trolls” and “bots” are utilised to spew disinformation. Trolls are persons who intentionally antagonise others by posting offensive and inflammatory content on the Internet for the sole purpose of spreading lies and fake news. “Bots” are automated engines that generate fake news to simulate the behaviour of human beings.

According to the Centre for Information Technology and Society (CITS), a US research centre based in California, “social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) have become home to millions of social bots that spread fake news… There were 23 million bots on Twitter (around 8.5 per cent of all accounts), 140 million bots on Facebook (up to 5.5 per cent of accounts) and around 27 million bots on Instagram (8.2 per cent of the accounts),” it says.

Not only individuals but also agencies and governments employ disinformation to their benefit. One disinformation tactic is to post an overwhelming number of messages with the same content. Israel’s disinformation schemes, for instance, do exactly that. Israeli propaganda has many objectives, but one is to improve the image of the Israel defence Forces (IDF). Tweets with that purpose in mind therefore may inundate readers.

They include messages such as the “IDF is the most moral army in modern history, does everything to protect civilians,” “the IDF has put in action daily tactical pauses in designated areas to maximise the safe evacuation of civilians,” “the IDF has made 20,000 calls, dropped 1.5 million leaflets, sent 4.4 million SMS and 6 million voice messages in northern Gaza urging civilians to evacuate for their safety,” and “the IDF says they’ve done more than any army in the history of warfare to protect civilians.”

Thousands of similar tweets exist on social media, there to deceive people into believing that Israel’s IDF is innocent while it viciously kills innocent civilians in Gaza and starves others to death.

Egypt has also faced disinformation wars aimed to cause mayhem: a wide range of fabricated stories have been spewed across social media in the hopes of triggering dissatisfaction and adverse moods. The disinformation fluctuates in shape and form and touches upon an endless score of topics, but the aim is one: to evoke discontent.

Stories may touch on fake or unrealised protests, unproven Covid-19 infection numbers, a malfunction in a major means of productivity or transportation, a tree-chopping vendetta and how it brought this year’s unbearable heat, or inefficient or procrastinating lawmakers.

Israel has also created its share of disinformation regarding Egypt, saying that tunnels exist between Gaza and Sinai, that weapons are smuggled from Sinai to Gaza, and that the border crossing between Sinai and Gaza is closed on the Egyptian side.

So, as news recipients, how do we handle disinformation? We must first be aware of the fabrications that fill our surroundings and do our best to identify disinformation versus information or credible facts and to learn to avoid falling victims to it.  

The most important advice is to become a scrutinising news recipient by checking mainstream news websites for verification. This can be the best way to decipher what is logical versus what is contrived. If the story you are reading appears in one source and does not appear in others, then believe me, it is made up.

Credible sources, such as Al-Ahram Weekly and Al-Ahram Arabic daily, should be your verifying source. Better yet, read or watch the news on the websites it originated from and not those that are reporting information found elsewhere.

Much of what we read or watch today is not news but other forms of information. As news recipients, we must learn to identify the difference. Today, a blurred line exists between information versus opinion pieces, advertising, entertainment, propaganda, or pure disinformation. Learn to differentiate between credible news and tweets by an unidentified person, a marketing ad, a photoshopped photograph, or AI-designed footage.

Other minor but thoroughly important tactics may help us identify disinformation. Make sure that the story is current and not regurgitated from years past. Some stories are jokes or parodies; don’t fall for these and read them as real stories. Most importantly, check and verify before you share.

Disinformation will not go away; quite the contrary, it is here to stay. It is up to us as informed recipients of news to decipher what we receive to the best of our ability.

The writer is a former professor of communication who is based in Vancouver, Canada.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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