How to Navigate an Information Media Environment Awash in Manipulation, Falsehood, Hysteria, Vitriol, Hyper-Partisan Deceit and Pernicious Algorithms A Guide for the Conscientious Citizen A Reflection Paper prepared for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom By Christopher Dornan Ottawa, Canada, August 2019 To quote this article: DORNAN, Christopher. ‘‘How to Navigate an Information Media Environment Awash in Manipulation, Falsehood, Hysteria, Vitriol, Hyper-Partisan Deceit and Pernicious Algorithms’’, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, July 2019. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. About the author Christopher Dornan teaches at Carleton University, where he served for nine years as director of the School of Journalism and Communication and six years as director of the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs. His academic work has appeared in venues from the Media Studies Journal to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He is the co-editor (with Jon Pammett) of The Canadian Federal Election of 2015, along with five previous volumes in this series. In 2017, he wrote the Canadian Commission for UNESCO reflection paper “Dezinformatsiya: The Past, Present and Future of ‘Fake News’.” He is chair of the board of Reader’s Digest Magazines Canada, Inc. ii Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Troll culture ................................................................................................................................. 2 The conscientious citizen ............................................................................................................ 3 News and opinions ...................................................................................................................... 4 Bias and its benefits ..................................................................................................................... 6 Fact checkers ............................................................................................................................... 8 Descent into mania .................................................................................................................... 11 True or false? ............................................................................................................................. 12 The seductions of falsehood ..................................................................................................... 15 Inoculation ................................................................................................................................. 16 Prudent measures ..................................................................................................................... 18 Habits of mind ........................................................................................................................... 23 Resources .................................................................................................................................. 25 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 26 iii ‘’All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.’’ - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Cat’s Cradle (1963) Introduction In late March, 2018, U.S. President Donald company’s stock lost $53 billion in market Trump took to Twitter to attack Amazon, value before recovering. the Internet retail giant owned by Jeff Bezos, also the owner of the Washington The incident was a distillation of Post. Trump first accused Amazon of paying government-by-Trump. The angry “little or no taxes to state & local denunciation, shouted to the world via governments,” and claimed the company social media. The insistence that U.S. uses “our Postal System as their Delivery interests and coffers are being harmed. The Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.).” barking of orders to right this wrong. The drive-by denigration of journalistic Two days later, he insisted that the United institutions as “fake” and “failing.” The States Postal Service was subsidizing reaction of the stock market, giving weight Amazon’s home delivery service, and in to his words. And the fact that what he said doing so losing money. “While we are on is not true. the subject, it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each Under current U.S. law, states can charge package it delivers for Amazon. That businesses retail sales tax only if they amounts to Billions of Dollars… If the P.O. maintain a physical presence in the state. ‘increased its parcel rates, Amazon’s This would allow an Internet retailer such as shipping costs would rise by $2.6 Billion.’ Amazon to avoid paying taxes, except that This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon the company’s brick-and-mortar must pay real costs (and taxes) now!” warehouses are now so extensive that Amazon pays sales tax in every U.S. state At the same time, Trump accused Bezos of that has a sales tax. At the same time, using the Washington Post as a lobbying Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service instrument for Amazon. “The Failing N.Y. negotiated a deal for doorstep package Times reports that ‘the size of the delivery that, by all accounts, is profitable company’s lobbying staff has ballooned,’ for the Postal Service. “The whole post and that... does not include the Fake office thing, that’s very much a perception Washington Post, which is used as a [Trump] has,” Axios reported. “It's been ‘lobbyist’ and should so REGISTER.” explained to him in multiple meetings that his perception is inaccurate and that the Trump’s media reach is without equal. post office actually makes a ton of money There is no one on the planet who from Amazon.” commands more attention, his every utterance chronicled and amplified by Meanwhile, his accusation that the hundreds of millions of social media users Washington Post is a lobbying instrument is and a global media apparatus. Immediately consistent with his conviction that any after his Twitter tirade against Amazon, the media outlet critical of him is a political weapon, its unflattering coverage deliberately contrived to harm him. 1 Although Trump mocks their claims to accomplishment of hundreds of people impartiality and their ethos of “objectivity,” working in teams all over the world. Its the Washington Post, the New York Times, release was a global media event – itself a and every other standard bearer of triumph of a concerted publicity strategy responsible journalism operate according to intended to spark awe and wonder. protocols of inquiry and reportage designed to ensure that their accounts are as accurate as possible: that they reliably describe what actually occurred; that they can be trusted. Here, their own professional discipline entangles them in the trafficking of falsehood. What Trump said was untrue, but the fact that he said it was news. Though quick to inform their audiences that Amazon does, in reality, pay taxes and that the U.S. Postal Service profits from its arrangements with the company, by dutifully documenting Trump’s attack on Amazon the responsible news media accurately recounted something they knew to be wrong. MIT tweets a photo of Katie Bouman on the release of the first image of a black hole. Throughout the Western democracies, there is legitimate alarm about how to Part of that media strategy involved putting counter falsehoods manufactured by our a human face on the project. Along with the enemies in order to prey on social division, image of the black hole, the news media undermine trust in civic institutions, and and social media circulated a photograph of delegitimize democratic norms. But what if Katie Bouman, an MIT postdoctoral fellow there is an equal or greater threat closer to who was instrumental to the creation of the home? What if democratic politics itself algorithm that produced the image. She is becomes a spigot of manipulative shown looking up from her computer and dishonesties, in which our most responsible into the camera, her hands clasped in front media are implicated? What if the calls are of her mouth in delight, as though she is coming from inside the house? seeing the picture of the black hole emerge for the first time. Troll culture Almost immediately, Harvard scientist Andrew Chael, a colleague involved in the On April 10, 2019, an international project, noticed that Bouman had drawn consortium of scientists unveiled the first the attention of Internet trolls who claimed photographic image of a black hole, 40 she was being unfairly elevated over her billion kilometers in diameter and 55 billion male colleagues in order to advance a light years away. The picture was the result feminist agenda. “Contrary to media of a tremendous research effort, the propaganda,” declared one subreddit post, “the first image of a black hole was not 2 even made with the algorithm credited to Katie Bouman.” Others insisted that it was Chael, not Bouman, who wrote most of the pertinent code. The places where the attacks on Bouman first circulated are the dank sub-basement of the Internet. Gamergate reddit threads, the imageboards 4chan and 8chan, the messaging program Discord – these are the haunts of a menagerie of anti-