Are we living through an unprecedented informational crisis, disinformation age, or post-truth era? Drawing on a wide range of evidence and arguments, I give some reasons for scepticism.
"the simple fact that mainstream media reports on an attention-grabbing but highly nonrandom sample of all the bad things happening in the world means that avid news consumers are often grossly misinformed about even very basic statistical trends." This is a very true (and rarely understood) fundamental indictment of the whole concept of 'The News'. Paradoxically it can lead to the college 'educated' avid news consumers arguably having an even more distorted picture than the more proletarian. And there is another distortion inherent in mass media: it has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive and the permanently malcontent among us. Anyone who has got a reasonably balanced life is less likely to entirely taken up with it - whether as contributor or consumer.
I came here to say more or less what Graham has said (though we come from opposite ends of the political spectrum). I'll say more about this in a moment but I think this captures the gist:
> it has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive and the permanently malcontent among us.
This is a new phenomenon because the one-track-minded and the activist now have a way to share their malcontent with more than just a handful of like-minded people down the pub.
Interesting as always. However, I have concerns about whether some aspects of this myth contradict other myths you have written about in the past, as well as those you plan to write about in the future. In this essay, you reference 'popular' newspapers like the Sun and the Daily Mail, as well as accounts of celebrities on social media, as sources of propaganda. If this is true, does it mean that people are typically deceived, and that propaganda is effective? I doubt that you accept this implication.
Thanks Amin - very good question. I think whether media outlets are propagandistic (they often are) is separate from whether they're effective. As I'll outline in future posts, propaganda is of course sometimes effective, although people tend to greatly exaggerate its persuasive impacts in my view. I'll also make the case that most propaganda doesn't take the form of straightforward misinformation in a narrow sense.
Really interesting post! Here is one weaker idea of information crisis: the general public trusts the mainstream media less than it used to (https://news.gallup.com/poll/512861/media-confidence-matches-2016-record-low.aspx). Even if there isn't a greater rate of disinformation now, lower trust in mainstream news should lead to lower rates of updating on true information. Curious whether you agree that could be happening, and if so whether that can count as an 'unprecedented informational crisis'?
Is the widespread dissemination of the idea that we are living in a disinformation age itself an example of disinformation? If it is, is its widespread acceptance not a problem for your argument?
At worst it would be misinformation I think (assuming people aren't being deliberately manipulative with the idea). I don't think that would be a problem for my argument though would be interested in hearing more about the tension.
This was an excellent piece of work. A lot of the arguments we see about the novel risks of disinformation could do with a great deal more empirical support. How readily we forget even the recent past.
Gonna be curious about where you go with this essay series, but all your analyses seem to me slightly off rather and needlessly contrarian more often than on point.
I think all can agree that technological disruption of our information ecosystems has had some complex ripple effects, and trying to bring it down to one aspect such as disinformation is bound to fail; obviously. I personally do not see this as the thrust of most people's arguments, but rather an aspect of the more murky larger phenomena that people can agree on.
But maybe I am wrong, and many people reduce the complex phenomena of a disrupted info ecosystem down to disinformation, and this is a harmful myth in itself (which is where you alluded your essays will be going)... but just fyi, plenty of people have a way more nuanced opinion;
Well thanks for reading in any case. I don't view the arguments as "contrarian", except in the trivial sense that I am pushing back - with data and with arguments - against popular views. Your essay offers a "deep exploration of how a (largely) social media-driven epistemic crisis interferes with democratic processes, arguably one of the most important topics to understand in today’s world." This is exactly the kind of alarmism about social media that I point out in my piece is simply not well-supported by evidence on this topic. If you disagree with any specific points, I'm happy to hear them out.
If you would read into the assay, you'd find some very detailed explanations laid out with supportive evidence; including discussions about the often apparent inconclusiveness of studies conducted on the harm of social media. There are references to scientific papers, there are expert interviews, and there are case examples all making clear that the "alarmism" (I'd call it lacking awareness of exploitable vulnerabilities of social media dynamics) you allege is unsupported ... kinda actually is well supported and documented.
But I guess it is more salient to come up with a hot take (based on polls, news articles, and often irrelevant examples) that pushes back against all those people that sound the "alarm", many of them researchers who actually have studied this topic deeply. Cool USP, I am sure.
Maybe a point of intellectual humility would be to first try to understand where they come from, and why they do so, before rationalizing an argument that coheres with your intuition but can hardly be placed in the larger and overlapping research areas that interface with these issues.
Hi Philipp, this latest post questions whether the modern media environment truly is worse than in the past. You seem to assume that it is but Dan states that "there is no systematic evidence they (lies, propaganda etc) are more prevalent...or more impactful now than in the past".
Can you refute that one point?
I find it helps to be specific if you want to persuade people that you are correct.
> If you would read into the assay, you'd find some very detailed explanations laid out with supportive evidence...
One would also find impressive, misinformative rhetoric, done through culturally normalized abuse of language.
Speaking of misleading language:
> and there are case examples all making clear that the "alarmism" (I'd call it lacking awareness of exploitable vulnerabilities of social media dynamics) you allege is unsupported ... kinda actually is well supported and documented.
The phrase "making clear" could easily be mistaken to necessarily mean "demonstrates that it is true that", but if you were to use that wording you'd explicitly open yourself up to an epistemic challenge, whereas with "making clear" you can always fall back to [1] some variation of "you know what I mean" or "you are being pedantic/a troll/sea-lioning/etc" if someone challenges you.
>> Motte and bailey (MAB) is a combination of bait-and-switch and equivocation in which someone switches between a "motte" (an easy-to-defend and often common-sense statement, such as "culture shapes our experiences") and a "bailey" (a hard-to-defend and more controversial statement, such as "cultural knowledge is just as valid as scientific knowledge") in order to defend a viewpoint. Someone will argue the easy-to-defend position (motte) temporarily, to ward off critics, while the less-defensible position (bailey) remains the desired belief, yet is never actually defended.
>> In short: instead of defending a controversial position (the "bailey"), the arguer retreats to defending a less controversial position (the "motte"), while acting as though the positions are equivalent. When the motte has been accepted (or found impenetrable) by an opponent, the arguer returns to the bailey and can claim the bailey has not been refuted.
>> Note that the MAB works only if the motte and the bailey are sufficiently similar (at least superficially) that one can switch between them while pretending that they are equivalent. There exist a number of common rhetorical ploys and 'sleights-of-tongue' which can mask the apparency of such a transition.
The article doesn't mention a very important detail: the person engaging in the action may not have intent to do so, or even any awareness whatsoever that they are doing it. Talking like this *has become a cultural norm*, it is typically absolutely sub-perceptual.
Similarly, the phrase "is unsupported" could be interpreted to mean "*it is a fact that* the proposition has no(!) support", when what it actually is, is *your opinion of* the fact of the matter.
-------------------------------
> But I guess it is more salient to come up with a hot take
>> In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.
>> Naïve realism provides a theoretical basis for several other cognitive biases, which are systematic errors when it comes to thinking and making decisions. These include the false consensus effect, actor–observer bias, bias blind spot, and fundamental attribution error, among others.
-------------------------------
> based on polls, news articles, and often irrelevant examples
Are you asserting that these things *are in fact* objectively(!) irrelevant?
Was the ambiguity accidental?
> that pushes back against all those people that sound the "alarm", many of them researchers who actually have studied this topic deeply.
Are you implying that "researchers" opinions on these matters are *necessarily* higher quality, and not just in the aggregate but as an absolute?
If not: *what is the point of this phrase*? What precise truth are you intending to communicate?
> Maybe a point of intellectual humility would be to first try to understand where they come from...before rationalizing an argument that coheres with your intuition ...
You should perhaps take your own advice, Perfectly Rational Human.
Our culture runs on rhetoric, and the language he's using is highly optimal for a persuasion based culture like ours. That he truly believes the things he says makes them the delivery even more persuasive.
The problem is what western culture has become, particularly the way we use language and utterly reject epistemology (have you ever noticed that the relevant philosophical disciplines are rarely if ever discussed by The Experts)?
> lies, propaganda, baseless conspiracy theories, inaccurate ideologies, and so on are ancient and pervasive features of human societies, and there is no systematic evidence they are more prevalent (relative to good information) or more impactful now than in the past.
But if the idea of marketplace of rationalizations is right, you don't need them being more prevalent in percentage terms or more impactful in easily measurable ways. If the only information you have is carefully vetted, while this does come with its own set of problems, it still remains true that it is just very damn difficult to find rationalizations for the view you want. On the other hand, in the Internet age, the very fact of proliferation of information means proliferation of rationalizations for any crazy belief, and thus even if they are not more prevalent relative to good information or don't change much in things we can measure easily, they provide a reason to become more pig-headed, and thus we live in an "abundance of rationalizations" age, which is, by itself, inviting for more sticky misinformed beliefs (not due to general gullibility but due to reinforcing preexisting biases at a non-preexistent scale).
It really boils down to this, and recent decades the left has been worse than the right... The political class believes they are smarter than you. They have more money than you. They know what is best for you. If they have to lie to achieve their goals, so be it. They are smarter than you. Only problem is, our political class is made up of the bottom of the barrel. The C and D students with inferiority complexes desperately seeking attention. Many were born into their grift, and those that were not are quickly converted by it. Truly intelligent people don't aspire to become senators. They aspire to be doctors, scientists, engineers. Actual professions that benefit society instead of leeching off of it.
"the simple fact that mainstream media reports on an attention-grabbing but highly nonrandom sample of all the bad things happening in the world means that avid news consumers are often grossly misinformed about even very basic statistical trends." This is a very true (and rarely understood) fundamental indictment of the whole concept of 'The News'. Paradoxically it can lead to the college 'educated' avid news consumers arguably having an even more distorted picture than the more proletarian. And there is another distortion inherent in mass media: it has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive and the permanently malcontent among us. Anyone who has got a reasonably balanced life is less likely to entirely taken up with it - whether as contributor or consumer.
I came here to say more or less what Graham has said (though we come from opposite ends of the political spectrum). I'll say more about this in a moment but I think this captures the gist:
> it has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive and the permanently malcontent among us.
This is a new phenomenon because the one-track-minded and the activist now have a way to share their malcontent with more than just a handful of like-minded people down the pub.
That's right....and there's us agreeing again!
Interesting as always. However, I have concerns about whether some aspects of this myth contradict other myths you have written about in the past, as well as those you plan to write about in the future. In this essay, you reference 'popular' newspapers like the Sun and the Daily Mail, as well as accounts of celebrities on social media, as sources of propaganda. If this is true, does it mean that people are typically deceived, and that propaganda is effective? I doubt that you accept this implication.
Thanks Amin - very good question. I think whether media outlets are propagandistic (they often are) is separate from whether they're effective. As I'll outline in future posts, propaganda is of course sometimes effective, although people tend to greatly exaggerate its persuasive impacts in my view. I'll also make the case that most propaganda doesn't take the form of straightforward misinformation in a narrow sense.
Really interesting post! Here is one weaker idea of information crisis: the general public trusts the mainstream media less than it used to (https://news.gallup.com/poll/512861/media-confidence-matches-2016-record-low.aspx). Even if there isn't a greater rate of disinformation now, lower trust in mainstream news should lead to lower rates of updating on true information. Curious whether you agree that could be happening, and if so whether that can count as an 'unprecedented informational crisis'?
It's a very good point and I agree actually, although would be reluctant to characterise it as an informational crisis. I go into this a bit here: https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/misinformation-is-often-the-symptom
Is the widespread dissemination of the idea that we are living in a disinformation age itself an example of disinformation? If it is, is its widespread acceptance not a problem for your argument?
At worst it would be misinformation I think (assuming people aren't being deliberately manipulative with the idea). I don't think that would be a problem for my argument though would be interested in hearing more about the tension.
This was an excellent piece of work. A lot of the arguments we see about the novel risks of disinformation could do with a great deal more empirical support. How readily we forget even the recent past.
Thanks Mike!
Your Brendan Nyhan link goes to Jeffrey Friedman instead. I really like Lorna Finlayson's writing, glad you included her.
Thanks for letting me know!
Gonna be curious about where you go with this essay series, but all your analyses seem to me slightly off rather and needlessly contrarian more often than on point.
I think all can agree that technological disruption of our information ecosystems has had some complex ripple effects, and trying to bring it down to one aspect such as disinformation is bound to fail; obviously. I personally do not see this as the thrust of most people's arguments, but rather an aspect of the more murky larger phenomena that people can agree on.
But maybe I am wrong, and many people reduce the complex phenomena of a disrupted info ecosystem down to disinformation, and this is a harmful myth in itself (which is where you alluded your essays will be going)... but just fyi, plenty of people have a way more nuanced opinion;
https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/asymmetric-power-in-the-information
Well thanks for reading in any case. I don't view the arguments as "contrarian", except in the trivial sense that I am pushing back - with data and with arguments - against popular views. Your essay offers a "deep exploration of how a (largely) social media-driven epistemic crisis interferes with democratic processes, arguably one of the most important topics to understand in today’s world." This is exactly the kind of alarmism about social media that I point out in my piece is simply not well-supported by evidence on this topic. If you disagree with any specific points, I'm happy to hear them out.
If you would read into the assay, you'd find some very detailed explanations laid out with supportive evidence; including discussions about the often apparent inconclusiveness of studies conducted on the harm of social media. There are references to scientific papers, there are expert interviews, and there are case examples all making clear that the "alarmism" (I'd call it lacking awareness of exploitable vulnerabilities of social media dynamics) you allege is unsupported ... kinda actually is well supported and documented.
But I guess it is more salient to come up with a hot take (based on polls, news articles, and often irrelevant examples) that pushes back against all those people that sound the "alarm", many of them researchers who actually have studied this topic deeply. Cool USP, I am sure.
Maybe a point of intellectual humility would be to first try to understand where they come from, and why they do so, before rationalizing an argument that coheres with your intuition but can hardly be placed in the larger and overlapping research areas that interface with these issues.
Hi Philipp, this latest post questions whether the modern media environment truly is worse than in the past. You seem to assume that it is but Dan states that "there is no systematic evidence they (lies, propaganda etc) are more prevalent...or more impactful now than in the past".
Can you refute that one point?
I find it helps to be specific if you want to persuade people that you are correct.
> If you would read into the assay, you'd find some very detailed explanations laid out with supportive evidence...
One would also find impressive, misinformative rhetoric, done through culturally normalized abuse of language.
Speaking of misleading language:
> and there are case examples all making clear that the "alarmism" (I'd call it lacking awareness of exploitable vulnerabilities of social media dynamics) you allege is unsupported ... kinda actually is well supported and documented.
The phrase "making clear" could easily be mistaken to necessarily mean "demonstrates that it is true that", but if you were to use that wording you'd explicitly open yourself up to an epistemic challenge, whereas with "making clear" you can always fall back to [1] some variation of "you know what I mean" or "you are being pedantic/a troll/sea-lioning/etc" if someone challenges you.
[1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
>> Motte and bailey (MAB) is a combination of bait-and-switch and equivocation in which someone switches between a "motte" (an easy-to-defend and often common-sense statement, such as "culture shapes our experiences") and a "bailey" (a hard-to-defend and more controversial statement, such as "cultural knowledge is just as valid as scientific knowledge") in order to defend a viewpoint. Someone will argue the easy-to-defend position (motte) temporarily, to ward off critics, while the less-defensible position (bailey) remains the desired belief, yet is never actually defended.
>> In short: instead of defending a controversial position (the "bailey"), the arguer retreats to defending a less controversial position (the "motte"), while acting as though the positions are equivalent. When the motte has been accepted (or found impenetrable) by an opponent, the arguer returns to the bailey and can claim the bailey has not been refuted.
>> Note that the MAB works only if the motte and the bailey are sufficiently similar (at least superficially) that one can switch between them while pretending that they are equivalent. There exist a number of common rhetorical ploys and 'sleights-of-tongue' which can mask the apparency of such a transition.
The article doesn't mention a very important detail: the person engaging in the action may not have intent to do so, or even any awareness whatsoever that they are doing it. Talking like this *has become a cultural norm*, it is typically absolutely sub-perceptual.
Similarly, the phrase "is unsupported" could be interpreted to mean "*it is a fact that* the proposition has no(!) support", when what it actually is, is *your opinion of* the fact of the matter.
-------------------------------
> But I guess it is more salient to come up with a hot take
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology)
>> In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.
>> Naïve realism provides a theoretical basis for several other cognitive biases, which are systematic errors when it comes to thinking and making decisions. These include the false consensus effect, actor–observer bias, bias blind spot, and fundamental attribution error, among others.
-------------------------------
> based on polls, news articles, and often irrelevant examples
Are you asserting that these things *are in fact* objectively(!) irrelevant?
Was the ambiguity accidental?
> that pushes back against all those people that sound the "alarm", many of them researchers who actually have studied this topic deeply.
Are you implying that "researchers" opinions on these matters are *necessarily* higher quality, and not just in the aggregate but as an absolute?
If not: *what is the point of this phrase*? What precise truth are you intending to communicate?
> Maybe a point of intellectual humility would be to first try to understand where they come from...before rationalizing an argument that coheres with your intuition ...
You should perhaps take your own advice, Perfectly Rational Human.
Our culture runs on rhetoric, and the language he's using is highly optimal for a persuasion based culture like ours. That he truly believes the things he says makes them the delivery even more persuasive.
The problem is what western culture has become, particularly the way we use language and utterly reject epistemology (have you ever noticed that the relevant philosophical disciplines are rarely if ever discussed by The Experts)?
Can you expand upon the phrase "needlessly contrarian"? What variable(s) are you optimizing for in your model?
> lies, propaganda, baseless conspiracy theories, inaccurate ideologies, and so on are ancient and pervasive features of human societies, and there is no systematic evidence they are more prevalent (relative to good information) or more impactful now than in the past.
But if the idea of marketplace of rationalizations is right, you don't need them being more prevalent in percentage terms or more impactful in easily measurable ways. If the only information you have is carefully vetted, while this does come with its own set of problems, it still remains true that it is just very damn difficult to find rationalizations for the view you want. On the other hand, in the Internet age, the very fact of proliferation of information means proliferation of rationalizations for any crazy belief, and thus even if they are not more prevalent relative to good information or don't change much in things we can measure easily, they provide a reason to become more pig-headed, and thus we live in an "abundance of rationalizations" age, which is, by itself, inviting for more sticky misinformed beliefs (not due to general gullibility but due to reinforcing preexisting biases at a non-preexistent scale).
It really boils down to this, and recent decades the left has been worse than the right... The political class believes they are smarter than you. They have more money than you. They know what is best for you. If they have to lie to achieve their goals, so be it. They are smarter than you. Only problem is, our political class is made up of the bottom of the barrel. The C and D students with inferiority complexes desperately seeking attention. Many were born into their grift, and those that were not are quickly converted by it. Truly intelligent people don't aspire to become senators. They aspire to be doctors, scientists, engineers. Actual professions that benefit society instead of leeching off of it.
"I also think he’s an unusually bad person and a threat to American democracy,"
It's a Constitutional Republic and you spelled Joe Biden wrong.
Dan
Always enjoy your work.
About ‘science’ as truth.
Thank the controversy over Newton’s book vs Descartes work. Accepted in England and rejected in France.
Gravity rejected as ‘religious’ belief. Descartes accepted since ‘mechanical’ explanation.
See Voltaire.
Then as Newton won, a mathematical interpretation of physical reality essential.
Then, with Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein a rejection of any material reality replaced with ‘fields of force’.
Now, 90 percent of universe is ‘dark energy or dark matter’.
Was this development ‘misinformation’ or just increasing insight?
Maybe, the ‘rage to conclude’ is the underlying weakness.
Thanks
Clay