EOTO #2 What I Learnt

     

    The first thing I learned were the different types of misinformation, or rather the differences between misinformation disinformation, and malinformation. I was always aware that there were subtleties and nuances to incorrect news and information being spread in the world, but I was never sure what the names and differences were between each variation of this practice. I learned that Misinformation was the unintentional propagation of incorrect information. It's not inherently malicious, it is just the repetition of something that was incorrectly spread and magnified through echo chambers. That way it's much like gossip in personal life and how it can spread. Disinformation is the other side of the coin and usually the start point for the previous term. This form of incorrect information is malicious and started with the intent to harm or incorrectly inform. This can be picked up and spread by people unknowingly contributing to the harmful effects that it is causing, or intentionally using it to create a false narrative. The final term learned from this presentation was malinformation, which is unique from the other terms. Malinformation utilizes real facts that are cherry picked from real events in order to cry a specific narrative around real facts. This is the most difficult to par out because the things that it talks about are real yet intentionally leaving out the full picture. This narrative warping can occur a lot through news headlines that can point to only one part of an article and people make snap judgments based upon that rather than reading the whole article. More on this particular phenomenon can be found here.

Another thing I learned about through this exercise are false flag operations. I’m not ashamed to admit I had only heard about this term thanks to a lyric in a song by the band “Rare Americans”, but I had no idea the context or the devastating implications. False flag operations simply exist for the benefit of the government and how its public perception is. Simple self-justification of invasion for the benefit of the public in order to craft a narrative explaining something that has scummy motives. After seeing how much this happens, I am now very encouraged to think more critically of any conflict the US finds itself in and ensure that I am not being taken along with the wrong narrative.