{"id":39012,"date":"2023-11-24T17:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=39012"},"modified":"2023-11-24T17:00:40","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T13:00:40","slug":"disinformation-campaigns-are-undermining-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/disinformation-campaigns-are-undermining-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

When people are pervasively disinformed, the very foundations of democracy can end up on shaky ground<\/em><\/span>
\n<\/h4>\n

Misinformation is debated everywhere and has justifiably sparked concerns. It can polarise the public, reduce health-protective behaviours such as mask wearing and vaccination, and erode trust in science. Much of misinformation is spread not by accident but as part of organised political campaigns, in which case we refer to it as disinformation.<\/p>\n

But there is a more fundamental, subversive damage arising from misinformation and disinformation that is discussed less often.<\/p>\n

It undermines democracy itself. In a recent paper published in ‘Current Opinion in Psychology’, we highlight two important aspects of democracy that disinformation works to erode.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The integrity of elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first of the two aspects is confidence in how power is distributed \u2013 the integrity of elections in particular.<\/p>\n

In the United States, recent polls have shown nearly 70% of Republicans question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. This is a direct result of disinformation from Donald Trump, the loser of that election.<\/p>\n

Democracy depends on the people knowing that power will be transferred peacefully if an incumbent loses an election. The \u201cbig lie\u201d that the 2020 US election was stolen undermines that confidence.<\/p>\n

Depending on reliable information<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second important aspect of democracy is this \u2013 it depends on reliable information about the evidence for various policy options.<\/p>\n

One reason we trust democracy as a system of governance is the idea that it can deliver \u201cbetter\u201d decisions and outcomes than autocracy, because the \u201cwisdom of crowds\u201d outperforms any one individual. But the benefits of this wisdom vanish if people are pervasively disinformed.<\/p>\n

Disinformation about climate change is a well-documented example. The fossil fuel industry understood the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels at least as early as the 1960s. Yet they spent decades funding organisations that denied the reality of climate change. This disinformation campaign has delayed climate mitigation by several decades \u2013 a case of public policy being thwarted by false information.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen a similar misinformation trajectory in the Covid-19 pandemic, although it happened in just a few years rather than decades. Misinformation about Covid varied from claims that 5G towers rather than a virus caused the disease, to casting doubt on the effectiveness of lockdowns or the safety of vaccines.<\/p>\n

The viral surge of misinformation led to the World Health Organisation introducing a new term \u2013 infodemic \u2013 to describe the abundance of low-quality information and conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

A common denominator of misinformation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Strikingly, some of the same political operatives involved in denying climate change have also used their rhetorical playbook to promote Covid disinformation. What do these two issues have in common?<\/p>\n

One common denominator is suspicion of government solutions to societal problems. Whether it\u2019s setting a price on carbon to mitigate climate change, or social distancing to slow the spread of Covid, contrarians fear the policies they consider to be an attack on personal liberties.<\/p>\n

An ecosystem of conservative and free-market think tanks exists to deny any science that, if acted on, has the potential to infringe on \u201cliberty\u201d through regulations.<\/p>\n

There is another common attribute that ties together all organised disinformation campaigns \u2013 whether about elections, climate change or vaccines. It\u2019s the use of personal attacks to compromise people\u2019s integrity and credibility.<\/p>\n

Election workers in the US were falsely accused of committing fraud by those who fraudulently claimed the election had been \u201cstolen\u201d from Trump.<\/p>\n

Climate scientists have been subject to harassment campaigns, ranging from hate mail to vexatious complaints and freedom-of-information requests. Public health officials such as Anthony Fauci have been prominent targets of far-right attacks.<\/p>\n

The new frontier in attacks on scientists<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is perhaps unsurprising there is now a new frontier in the attacks on scientists and others who seek to uphold the evidence-based integrity of democracy. It involves attacks and allegations of bias against misinformation researchers.<\/p>\n

Such attacks are largely driven by Republican politicians, in particular those who have endorsed Trump\u2019s baseless claims about the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

The misinformers are seeking to neutralise research focused on their own conduct by borrowing from the climate denial and anti-vaccination playbook. Their campaign has had a chilling effect on research into misinformation.<\/p>\n

How do we move on from here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psychological research has contributed to legislative efforts by the European Union, such as the Digital Services Act or Code of Practice, which seek to make democracies more resilient against misinformation and disinformation.<\/p>\n

Research has also investigated how to boost the public\u2019s resistance to misinformation. One such method is inoculation, which rests on the idea people can be protected against being misled if they learn about the rhetorical techniques used to mislead them.<\/p>\n

In a recent inoculation campaign involving brief educational videos shown to 38 million citizens in Eastern Europe, people\u2019s ability to recognise misleading rhetoric about Ukrainian refugees was frequently improved.<\/p>\n

Stephan Lewandowsky<\/span>
\n<\/strong>University of Bristol<\/p>\n

John Cook<\/span>
\n<\/strong>The University of Melbourne<\/p>\n

\n

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 24 November 2023<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When people are pervasively disinformed, the very foundations of democracy can end up on shaky ground<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-a9e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}