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TRANSCRIPT: Tai Asks Why - Disinformation

Tai Poole: So, I read this thing on the internet the other day. I was scrolling on my phone, and this news headline came up that said “Eating Watermelons Can Kill You”. And I was horrified because I love watermelons. So, of course, I had to share it with my friends in our group chat to keep them safe. But, right before I pressed the little send arrow, I was like, hold on a second. That can’t be true, right? I mean, our family eats watermelon every summer, and last I checked, they're still alive.

Tai Poole: So, I did a bit more reading into it, and it turned out that the story was actually not true. If you eat three or four watermelons in a sitting, you could get really sick. But I don’t see how someone just accidentally does that. After getting tricked that time with the watermelon story, now when I’m online, I sometimes don't know what to believe anymore. There’s so much information flying around on the internet. And not all of it is good. Some of it's confusing, or inaccurate, and some stuff seems to be misleading on purpose.

Tai Poole: But why would people share stuff if it’s not true? What kinds of false information are out there? And how can I stop it from spreading? How can I know what’s actually true on the internet?

[Clip of “Tai Asks Why Theme Music” by Johnny Spence]

Tai Poole: I'm Tai and this is my podcast, Tai Asks Why. There are a ton of great questions out there that you really want to have answered. Is it possible to predict the future? How is the universe going to end? What’s at the bottom of the ocean? What's the deal with screen time? How else can we power the planet? And how do I know what's true on the internet?

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Kien, have you ever been fooled by something online?

Sound Clip: [Kien Poole] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Definitely. It's easy to get lured in by something because the internet is like this all-knowing being who tells you everything.

Tai Poole: That's Kien, my younger brother.

Sound Clip: [Kien Poole] Yes, I've been fooled online a couple of times. I remember I was six or seven. I was just, you know, on the iPad, you know. I was watching this video about like, things that everyone knows that are fake. And I honestly believed it. I was like, I showed Tai the video, you. And I was just like, "Wow. I can't believe this, my whole life is a lie. Like, all this stuff that everyone knows is fake." And then you were like, "Kien, that's not true." And I'm like, "But what's the point of that then? What's the point of making work to just edit a video down to just make something fake?" And then once you explained it to me, I was like, "I feel like such a dummy," because it was so obviously fake. Like, once I really thought about it, it was so dumb and silly. So I just - I'm like, "Why does someone put in the work?" I just don't know why someone would do that, you know?

Tai Poole: It actually felt strangely good to hear that I wasn't the only one getting fooled. There’s actually a big survey that's been done in 25 countries, which found that 86% of people have been duped by bad information before. And I learned from another study that being duped actually makes you trust good information less. So, why is there so much false information to begin with? To answer this question, I found someone who deals with it every day.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] As you know, we are living through a pandemic. And with that comes a lot of information. And sometimes we get good information, and sometimes we get information that is not so good.

Tai Poole: That’s my colleague Andrea Bellemare. She’s a reporter and producer at the CBC. Right now, she’s working for the COVID-19 fact-check unit. So her job is to help people by making sure they’ve got the right facts.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] So, one of the things that I've been doing is we tried to do some fact checks and talk about what kind of information is useful and what kind isn't. You know, an example of something that we saw was the idea that if you use a hairdryer on yourself, you could kill the virus. Or if you gargle a lot of water, you could flush the virus into your stomach and that would prevent you from getting it. And that's just not how it works.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Yeah, that hairdryer theory seems kinda - it doesn't seem like it'd work too much. They just think that they're fine when they're not. And, you know, they end up endangering themselves.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] Yeah, potentially.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] So I've heard a couple different things that kind of just float around, ‘disinformation' and 'misinformation.' Like, is there a difference between those two terms?

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] Yes, there is. So, misinformation is when false information is shared by mistake or because you think it's true. Disinformation is when false information is deliberately created and shared. But that information is known to be false. So, here's a good example. Do you know the candy Pop Rocks?

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Yeah. Yeah, I do. The ones that, you know, they put them in their mouth, and they go crackly and stuff.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] Exactly. So, for a very long time, there was a rumour that if you ate Pop Rocks and then you ate soda - so any kind of carbonated beverage - that the two would mix in your stomach and they would explode.

[fizzing and bubbling sounds]

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] And you would either get really sick or you would die.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] You know, kids are more gullible. And I can say this because I know them. But, like also, if you do eat Pop Rocks and drink soda, you do have like a really - your stomach feels like really weird for a little bit after. So, I'll just give them that for just for another thought. Your stomach won't explode, guys. You probably will have a stomachache after.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] We could probably classify that as misinformation because, you know, a lot of people share it because they think, "Oh, you know, I don't want to risk it. I don't want my child to eat Pop Rocks and then drink soda." Right? So, people are sharing this because maybe they had safety concerns or health concerns, but they're not necessarily trying to profit off of it or deliberately mislead people. So, the disinformation would be if you had, for example, someone who was trying to say, "I'll sell you this pill, and if you eat it, then you can also eat Pop Rocks and soda and nothing will happen." That could be an example of disinformation because you're doing it deliberately. You know that it has no effect on anything that happens in their stomach, but maybe you're trying to profit off of it. Maybe you're trying to sell product. Or, you know, maybe you're doing it because you have a political agenda.

Tai Poole: So now we know that there’s disinformation and misinformation, and that people spread them for different reasons. But, whichever one it is, bad information can get dangerous. The other day I heard this nurse from South Dakota talking on the news about how her patients don’t believe that COVID-19 is real and it was upsetting.

Sound Clip: [Nurse from South Dakota] I think the hardest thing to watch is that people are still looking for something else and they don’t want to believe that COVID is real. And their last dying words are, "This can’t be happening, it’s not real." And when they should be spending time facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred, and it just made me really sad the other night. And I just can’t believe that those are going to be their last thoughts and words.

Tai Poole: It’s so sad to think that these people were given such bad information that even when they are literally dying from a deadly disease, they don’t believe it’s real. Information is so powerful. And apparently the way it spreads is actually a lot like a virus.

Sound Clip: [Seema Yasmin] You know how we talk about a virus being contagious, like it spreads from one person to another? Actually, information is contagious too.

Tai Poole: That’s Seema Yasmin. She’s a doctor who studies viruses and has worked for the US Center for Disease Control. And since she knows so much about how viruses spread, she also has some ideas about how the virus of disinformation spreads.

Sound Clip: [Seema Yasmin] Information also spreads from person to person to person. And that's how you get what we call 'misinfodemics' - epidemics of misinformation. And there are so many parallels between disease spread and false information spread that you can actually use the same mathematical models that you used to track how a virus is spreading. You can use those same models to track how disease, disinformation and misinformation is spreading.

Tai Poole: Seema knows about this firsthand. She’s been on the ground as viruses and misinformation were spreading.

Sound Clip: [Seema Yasmin] I was a disease detective and I would get sent out to places where a disease was spreading - could be a virus, bacteria, fungus, anything. And I noticed that wherever I went into a hot zone, the disease was not the only thing that was spreading. Side by side with the disease there were rumours, myths, hoaxes, all kinds of misinformation and disinformation about the disease, which often fuelled the spread of the disease.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Mm-hm. And thanks to the Internet, it can spread so quickly, and it can just get from one place to another in seconds. Right?

Sound Clip: [Seema Yasmin] Absolutely. And it's not like this problem of like false information is new. It's been around for as long as humans have been around because we like making things up, we like causing trouble. But, yes, with the internet, the scale and the speed of this information problem is just so much bigger.

Tai Poole: It turns out there was a study done by MIT a few years ago that shows that false info travels faster and farther than accurate info. So, because of how fast misinformation spreads, even though people like Andrea check facts every day, it’s still better if people don’t spread false information in the first place. Especially when it’s coming from really influential people. Like this guy.

Sound Clip: [Donald Trump] Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just, very powerful light, right, and then I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning.

Tai Poole: Oh, man. My friends and I, we all definitely remember that press conference that Trump had.

Sound Clip: [Tai’s friends]: Oh yeah.

Sound Clip: [Finn] And the problem was that you can still cause damage by lying on the news even if it's debunked. Like, fact checking, in some cases, doesn't do a lot. And that's the problem. If you blatantly lie and then you're fact checked, it still sways public opinion.

Sound Clip: [Kaden] Especially if you have such a big platform.

Sound Clip: [Finn] Yeah.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Yeah. Like, by the time they had everyone hound down and chase people, like, "Oh, my god, don't inject disinfectant into your bloodstream. Why would you do that? It's too late. It's already spread far enough. People are getting hurt by this type of thing.

Sound Clip: [Zoe] Yeah, I think the thing about Trump is he like gives out fake news so often, like, lies so often that it's hard sometimes if you hear that all the time. It's hard to understand what's true and what's not.

Sound Clip: [Finn] Yeah. It desensitizes the public because, like, if you say crazy things, then it like shifts your perception of what is crazy. So, if something's less crazy, you would usually find it like being like a terrible thing to say. But after someone said something more terrible, then it doesn't seem so terrible anymore.

Tai Poole: That makes sense. Like, if you keep seeing a shocking piece of news every day, you'll build a tolerance and suddenly your bar for what will, you know, really wow you becomes super high. And when it all sounds so wild, it’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s made-up. So sometimes we need a little bit of help.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Hello.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] Hi, how are you?

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] I’m good. How are you today?

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] I’m great.

Tai Poole: This is Jimmeka Anderson. She studies digital media literacy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She also started a non-profit called I Am Not the Media which teaches young people media literacy and how to empower themselves on the internet. I called her up to help me sort out the facts from the fictions.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] So, a lot of the times with misinformation and disinformation, the way you can detect whether or not you are engaging in it is whether or not the headline is very reactive or shocking. So, does it provoke me to have an emotion? Does it provoke me to be angry or enraged? How does it make me feel? And if it is shocking, more than likely, you're engaging with some form of disinformation or misinformation.

Tai Poole: That makes sense because when we see something unbelievable we’ve never seen before, you know, we react, "Oh, my god, this is crazy. I didn't know this. We have to share this with everyone we know.” Which explains that whole thing about how bad information will spread faster than good information. The truth is just more boring than the wild stuff people can make up. But I still don’t get why people want to spread lies in the first place.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] There are people out there that are just trying to get you to click on their posts so they can get as many likes and as many hits and views. And they're creating clickbait.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] So, is it just kind of like a popularity contest, or are people actually getting something from these clicks?

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] Well, that's the thing. So, there's something called “audience commodity.” The more people that you get to view your content, there's money in there that's worth investing in with media. Because as you see with advertisers, wherever the people are, that's where they will go. So, if you have a YouTube channel or if you have a Facebook page or any kind of online presence that has heavy viewership, you can make money. People will actually invest in you. Just like radio stations make their money through advertising. If you have the people, there’s money in just having the people.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Yeah, if you're going to, like, pay fifteen bucks to put your ad before a YouTubers video, do you want to put it with the guy with fifteen views or the guy with two million subscribers, you know?

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] Exactly. You got it.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] It's more bang for your buck.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] It's all about the buck.

Tai Poole: Remember when my brother Kien was wondering why in the world people would make YouTube videos with false information? Now we know. It’s all about the money.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] What do you think about that, the fact that they're manipulating you?

Sound Clip: [Kien Poole] Emotions are dangerous because they can get out of control easily and they can cloud your judgment of what's right and what's wrong, you know. I know that this stuff is just trying to get my click to make money, but I still click on it. I know it's complete baloney, but I watch the video to be, like, “This is such a dumb video.” But then I've, even then, I'm still falling for their trap. Because even if I know the video is fake, I just want to like watch it to see what they think. I just watch it because, I guess, I'm just curious. Either way, they are still winning. Like, no matter what, ideally you're getting my click. And sometimes it works. Some people are really good at that stuff. Or some little kids, like me, we just kind of believe everything because we’re too young to have any experiences with this.

Tai Poole: Hearing Kien say that made me really worried for him out there in cyberspace getting lured into traps. These people might be creating misinformation just to get the sweet, sweet cash. But Jimmeka explained that this has a lot of consequences, especially for kids!

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] So, right now, we're living in an era where there is a lot going on in the social climate and in the global consciousness. Also, as we are kind of dealing with a lot in the racial climate. A lot of content that's shared online with racial injustices and things that happen in our communities. I think that it's very important for people to understand how this impacts youth. And the imagery that's shared online and youth being exposed to it without any form of media literacy. It has a huge impact on mental health. So, what I see is that a lot of misinformation and a lot of content that's shared online in the digital world, it can impact your belief systems. It can impact your health. It can impact your safety. And it can impact our actions.

Tai Poole: Jimmeka says that us kids and teens are really vulnerable to bad information because we don’t always know how to sort out what’s real. We’re also quite impressionable. Once we see something it can stick with us for a really long time and change the way we think about the world. And the really sketchy thing is that advertisers know that we’re vulnerable to this stuff, but they still target us with algorithms. If you didn't know what an algorithm is, it's basically like a set of instructions that tells a computer or a program what to do. So, internet companies can set up an algorithm to learn everything we've done online, what we look at, what we like and then keep showing us more of that.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] They can see what you specifically, as a child, what you specifically, as a teen, like, and what you're interested in and what you like to scroll and watch when no one's looking. And so they can create content and present that content to you based off of what they see. And when they know that, then you're constantly at prey. You're constantly at prey for misinformation because sometimes the media now with algorithms, they know us better than we know ourselves.

Tai Poole: It’s a little creepy, the idea that a website is gathering my information and feeding it to an algorithm and then showing me more things that I might like. The algorithm thing could lead to some problems, like if Kien watched a couple of videos with misleading information, YouTube could think, "Oh, he likes the fake stuff" and then suggest more un-factual videos for him to watch. And he doesn’t even need to choose them, they’ll just automatically play video after video with auto play. All of this stuff is really overwhelming. It makes me feel like we have no control, you know? We’re just putty in the hands of the money men. But luckily, Andrea, the fact checker, had some simple advice for how we can all take back control of the information we’re taking in.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] A really good way to do it is to look it up and just put the words “fact check” in a search engine. For example, you could put in “Pop Rocks” and “fact check.” And it should pull up pages that talk about it because there's quite a lot of information about Pop Rocks and how it's safe to eat them with soda online. And so that's an easy way for you to check something out. And the other thing that we try to do in our work is we try to figure out where something originated from because then you can see, you know, how something has evolved. And you can also try to find out, you know, did people just misread a tweet? Did they misunderstand something? Where did this come from? So, what you could do, is if you have the picture, is you save it to your computer and then you can go to any sort of search engine. You could use Google or Bing. And then what you do is you upload your picture, and if that picture has been used before, it'll show you other places where you can find that picture. And so that's a really easy way to check what you're seeing. And then all of a sudden you might discover, oh, it's from a different country or a different context or it's much older than I thought it was.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] And you can actually do reverse image searches with videos as well. There's some programs that you can use and they break all the videos down into pictures and then you can just take that picture and upload it the same way you would with just a still photograph. And it can tell you maybe where it came from. It's kind of like being a detective.

Tai Poole: Wow, that's so smart, and it's an easy thing to do. I’m going to start doing that. But in order to do that, the key is going to be reigning in that emotional reaction, you know. That like knee-jerk feeling when you see something weird and you’re like, "Oh, my god, I need to share. I need to share." Andrea says that when you feel that way, the key is to just to unwind and to take a minute, you know. Just relax. Breathe.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] It's not bad to have an emotional reaction, right? That's what makes us people. But, you know, sometimes it's good for us to pause, then we can let ourselves have that emotional reaction, and then like put on our rational thinking hats and go, "How can I check this out? Would I be able to go to a library? Could I ask my parents? Could I ask a friend? Could I ask a relative? Are there people that I know who are experts in this? If I do know them, would it be easy to find out information from them?" So, those are all other ways to think about it. And then, of course, if you’re not sure, don’t share.

Tai Poole: So, once you checked your sources, reversed image-searched, anything fishy, and asked people you trust, you’re way less likely to get tricked. But people around you still might, and I think we should help them out. I mean, at least we don’t want them to become a misinformation super-spreader. Jimmeka's got some tips on how to call this stuff out without stuff getting awkward.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] If I see a friend of mine and they're sharing information that I know is bad information, how can I kind of tell them? Right. Because it's kind of weird and stuff.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] I know. It is! So, what I like to tell youth is that if you don't feel comfortable saying anything, the first thing you can do is report it. So, every social media platform has the option for you to report a post. So, you can kind of remain incognito, if you would like, and still fight misinformation, disinformation by just reporting the content. But, you also have the opportunity to educate them, if you know them or they’re a family member and you feel comfortable doing so. I would not do it on their page to publicly humiliate them because nothing's more humiliating than when someone's calling you out on your obliviousness.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Oh, it's the worst.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] So, I would just send a message and say, "Hey, I don't know if you know this, but the article that you shared, it may be misinformation. Here is an article that states that." And you can kind of create a conversation there. And, you know, make them feel comfortable and say, "You know, misinformation, it is just not fun. I have been bamboozled" - you know, that's my term - "I have been bamboozled before. So I know it's just eugh! It's aggravating." And you know, just to make them feel OK, you know, make them feel comfortable. And then, lastly, if you don't know that person, but you want to make sure other people are not bamboozled by misinformation, you can just share about that article on your page and leak the actual content that shows that it's misinformation, to let people know, "If you're seeing this content, it is misinformation and disinformation." So you could just make your page an advocating board for misinformation, so to speak, if you would like. But those are three things. Report, educate that person privately, or advocate on your page.

SOUND CLIP: [Tai Poole] I get that, you know, don't heckle them because if you're like, "Your information's wrong," then you're gonna have all the people in the comments, "Oh, my god, you're so wrong." And all that stuff like that. Just send them a DM and be like, "Dude, I don't really think that's right. Like, I think your source is a little bad." And then maybe they'll just be like, "Thanks, man."

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] Yeah, exactly.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] And then you shake hands and become best friends for life.

Sound Clip: [Jimmeka Anderson] Exactly. That's exactly how you do it. [laughter] And you made a new friend from misinformation.

Tai Poole: That was a lot of good advice. I think next time when I see something fishy on the internet, what I want to do first is just be a Zen master and take a deep breath before doing anything. [breathes in deep] Because there will be a next time. There is a lot of misleading information out there. So, if you get tricked like Kien or me, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about as long as you're cool as a cucumber. You can probably tell what’s baloney, and you know, you can help your friends out too. Before we go, Andrea has one more thing to verify. After all, she is a professional fact checker.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] OK, so Tai, I have to ask you. You said that your stomach felt a bit weird after you had Pop Rocks and soda? How much did you have?

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Well, OK, OK, OK. It's like the fizziness of the Pop Rocks and the fizziness of the soda. It just jitters. So, maybe that's where the rumour started. But, like, it did feel a little bit weird. And a couple of my friends did think I was going to explode.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] [laughter] But you didn't explode because here we are talking.

Sound Clip: [Tai Poole] Not yet, at least.

Sound Clip: [Andrea Bellemare] [laughter] I guess there's still time.

[Clip of “Tai Asks Why Theme Music” by Johnny Spence]

Tai Poole: Thank you guys so much for listening. I'm Tai Poole. This show is produced by Amanda Buckiewicz and Judy Ziyi Gu. Judy’s also our digital producer. This podcast was created by Veronica Simmonds and she is also our editor and sound designer. The theme music is by Johnny Spence. Sound engineer is my padre, Minh Nguyen, and our location manager is my mama, Nicky Poole. Thanks, guys, for helping me make the podcast. Today my guests were Andrea Bellemare, Jimmeka Anderson, and Seema Yasmin. Special thanks to Austin Pomeroy for his assistance. Thanks also to my little bro Kien, plus my friends Kaden, Finn, Zoe, and Pyper for talking to me about bad information. Our senior producer is Tina Verma and Executive Producer of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. Until next time, I’m Tai, keep asking why. Don't drink bleach or inject disinfectant. God, please, no.

Transcript: Tai Asks Why - Season 3: How Do I Know What's True On The Internet?

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