Hodson on misinformation and disinformation in social media

The rate and speed disinformation and misinformation travels through social media can be damaging. Canada Research Chair in Digital Communication for the Public Interest Assoc. Prof. Jaigris Hodson  joined A Little More Conversation with Ben O’Hara-Byrne for a conversation about the emotional drivers and complexity of disinformation and strategies to decipher fact from fabrication.

Strong emotions from online content, particularly anger or fear, are a sign to stop and breathe, a topic Hodson covers in the interview. Here is some of what she had to say:

 “As soon as you feel that strong emotion, you need to stop because that's a sign that you should do some double checking before you click, because these are the triggers that make us click without thinking… first thing after you breathe and you stop, you realize this is a trigger for you is start to look.

“You can do an image search on Google to find out, is this image new? Was it posted in fact, a few years ago around something that was completely different? What is this from? And you can look at who shared the information. Where did this information originally come from? Does it come from, you know, a news outlet that is particularly trustworthy? Or does it come, you know, from somebody's blog, right? What are their expertise?…Only once you've followed up a little bit on the content should you feel comfortable sharing it.”

Listen to the full interview.