Information Literacy: critical thinking and practical skills TERESA SCHMIDT MERCER PUBLIC LIBRARY SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 Week 2 BUT WHY DO THEY DO IT? ▪ Listen respectfully, without interrupting. ▪ Listen actively and with an ear to understanding others' views. ▪ Criticize ideas, not individuals. Ground Rules ▪ Commit to learning, not debating. ▪ Avoid blame, speculation, and inflammatory language. ▪ Allow everyone the chance to speak. ▪ Avoid assumptions about any member of the class or generalizations about social groups. ▪ Do not ask individuals to speak for their (perceived) social group. ▪If you don’t want to appear in the recording, please turn off your video feed before you ask a question. University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning & Teaching, https://crlt.umich.edu/publinks/generalguidelines Questions & Comments NOTES FROM LAST WEEK TikTok POLITICAL FOOTBALL OR SECURITY RISK? Misinformation in Mainstream Media CDA, section 230: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Take-aways from these examples… 1. Mainstream media are not perfect! 2. Suing someone is not proof of their guilt. 3. Mainstream media can, in fact, serve to increase the dissemination of fake news. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23808985.2020.1759443 Psychology of Misinformation HOW DOES OUR PSYCHOLOGY WORK AGAINST US? Cognitive Biases “A collection of faulty ways of thinking that are hardwired into the human brain.” Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/cognitive-bias/565775/ Cognitive bias in info literacy Confirmation bias “The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.” Oxford Languages Illusory truth effect “The illusory truth effect (also known as the illusion of truth effect, validity effect, truth effect, or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure.” Wikipedia In-group bias The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others who belong to the same group that they do.” The Decision Lab Proportionality Bias Our innate tendency to assume that big events have big causes. May also explain our tendency to accept conspiracy theories. Wikipedia Dunning- Krueger Effect "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919) Graph used under CC Public Domain dedication by 忍者猫 Backfire Effect A biological way of protecting a worldview https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe_clean The Backfire Effect is mostly a myth: www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/the-backfire-effect-is-mostly-a-myth-a-broad-look-at-the-research-suggests/ Discussion WHAT STRUCK YOU FROM THIS WEEK’S READINGS? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN EXAMPLES OF THESE COGNITIVE BIASES? Bots, Trolls, and Imposters WHAT ARE SOME OTHER WAYS YOUR NEWSFEED GETS DISTORTED? Imposters Source goes here! Trolls Real people who (are paid to) spread misinformation through social media and comments sections. Photo by Mark König on Unsplash Troll Farms 50 Cent Army – Chinese government initiative. One 2016 estimate showed 440M+ fake posts per year. Internet Research Agency – Russian company promoting government and business interests Facilities in Ghana and Nigeria; hundreds of accounts Turning Point Action (TPA) – Arizona-based conservative group focusing on young people. Paid people (some minors) to coordinate posts using their own social media accounts, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Spot the Troll – spotthetroll.org Source goes here! Bots “Everyone is talking about it!” – an example of the illusory truth effect 2017 USC study: up to 15% of Twitter accounts are bots 2016 USC study: 19% of election-related tweets during the study were generated by bots 2020 Carnegie Mellon study: • Of the top 50 influential retweeters discussing the coronavirus, 82% are bots • Bots are “dominating the conversation about ending stay- at-home orders and ‘reopening America,’” and there is evidence that the bot activity is coordinated. https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2020/may/twitter-bot-campaign.html Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash Predictive Analytics “Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modelling, and machine learning, that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events.” Wikipedia Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash Filter Bubbles Filter bubbles and “A situation in which an Internet user encounters only information and opinions that conform to and reinforce echo chambers their own beliefs, caused by algorithms that personalize an effectively serve individual’s online experience.” – Oxford Languages different realities to different “…what’s in your filter bubble depends on people. who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don’t decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don’t actually see what gets edited out.” – Eli Pariser Next week IDENTIFYING BAD INFORMATION Reading: feuniversity.org/information-literacy-fall-2020/ Thank you! TERESA SCHMIDT Mercer Public Library [email protected] 715.476.2366 feuniversity.org/information - li teracy -fall-2020/.