Weaponizing "do your own research"
Francesca Tripodi and colleagues describe how bad actors can promote disinformation by getting people to participate in "verifying" the disinformation.
I’m the kind of person that likes to figure things out myself. When my iPhone suddenly began flashing its lamp and playing a weird little tune, I jumped on the internet to diagnose the issue (no, it wasn’t possessed or hacked - I had unintentionally bumped my Apple Watch’s “ping your iPhone” function). When I needed to learn about the differences between independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care, I googled and read until my eyes watered (elder care in the US is complex, to put it mildly). And I like to “verify” what people tell me - I’m slow to act on financial advice because I spend a ton of time looking up explanations of things like college 529 plans. And despite being somewhat “proud” of my ability to “figure it out.” in reality there are lots of times when “doing your own research” can go really, really awry.
Francesca Tripodi and colleagues have just published a fascinating piece on how bad actors can intentionally, and unintentionally, leverage technology to convert “doing your own research” into “convincing yourself that misinformation is true.” In many cases people don’t know enough to do their own good research and instead end up being duped into believing conspiracy theories, etc. Even more concerning, the very act of “doing the research” can make people invest more heavily in the mis/disinformation, because they “proved it” for themselves. The article has three really fascinating examples of this phenomenon, and it really is one to watch out for. Now, I’m not going to tell people to stop trying to figure things out, but I would tell them (and myself) to be very careful to include experts’ views in that research. Critical thinking often requires knowing when to rely on others’ critical thinking instead of one’s own.