Mis/Disinformation Resources
Misinformation and disinformation are two different things, one intentional (disinformation), the other not always intentional (misinformation).
Disinformation is not new. (For more on this, read Active Measures, listed under books below.)
Digital communications have accelerated how disinformation can be created and how it can spread.
Colorado has already seen a deep-fake video ad, though the state is a leader in regulating artificial intelligence in politics and elsewhere.
People often choose to believe untruths when they fit their beliefs, according to a University of Colorado study.
Online resources
The Brennan Center’s election rumor tracking
The News Literacy Project’s misinformation dashboard
Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers by Mike Caulfield
PEN America offers some great resources, aimed at journalists but useful for all. This piece about talking with family and friends is especially useful.
AI chatbots may help curb some conspiracy theories!
Reading list (all titles available from BPLD or its consortium partners)
Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare by Thomas Rid
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis by Adam Hochschild
Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America by Barbara McQuade
Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Tal Lavin (published as Talia Lavin)
Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America by Kati Marton
Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect by Mick West
Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity by Sander Van Der Linden
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley
How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler by Peter Pomerantsev
Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories by Mike Rothschild (the author isn’t related to his book’s subjects)
Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation by Jeff Kosseff
Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie
Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power by Anna Merlan
The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything by Mike Rothschild
Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson
*Threatened Children : Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims by Joel Best.
The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time by Brooke Gladstone
True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo
*Verified : How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg
Starred titles are available from Prospector. All others are found in Boulder Public Library District’s catalog.
A few quotes…
“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” — Rick Warren, Baptist pastor and author
“One never lies to people; they lie to themselves. A good liar gives fools what they want to hear and allows them to free themselves from the facts at hand and choose the level of self-delusion that fits their foolishness and moral turpitude. That’s the secret. Oldest trick in the world.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Labyrinth of the Spirits
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
“This is not to say that misinformation is something nobody should worry about. It’s that the factual element shouldn’t be the focus. Journalists and voters should pay more attention to the motivations, content, and drivers of mis- and disinformation. Research on those examines how people might share information, regardless of its factual basis, to forge collective identity with others, how actors strategically utilize racial divisions to further disinformation, and how far-right groups manipulate the media to spread radicalizing conspiracy theories, in turn driving misguided searches for “the truth.”— Shannon C. McGregor and Daniel Kreiss, “Americans Are Too Worried About Political Misinformation,” Slate.com, October 30, 2020
“Conspiracy thinking is incredibly compelling…. It is self-sealing in its logic, and self-soothing in its effect: It posits a world where nothing happens by accident, where morality is plain, where every piece of information has divine meaning and every person has agency. It makes a puzzle out of the conspiracy, and a prestige-drama hero out of the conspiracist.”— Ellen Cushing, “I Was a Teenage Conspiracy Theorist,” The Atlantic, May 13, 2020
And finally…..Advice from a journalist friend of panelist Sandra Fish
The above resources were shared by Sandra Fish and Lauren Seegmiller, who served as panelists on the topic of identifying and fighting election-related misinformation on Sept. 17, 2024 at Boulder Public Library District’s Main Library. Fish is a retired journalist. Seegmiller is a public librarian.