Misinformation

“We see things not as they are, but as we are. Because it is the ‘I’ behind the ‘eye’ that does the seeing.” -Anaïs Nin

Last week, we featured a post on how quickly information is virally spread via social media. The example was the mash-up video that the everyone quickly came to believe was a Jumpman commercial of Michael Jordan dissing LeBron James’ “Rise” commercial—neglecting the fact that Jumpman is a property of Nike, so the said commercial would make no logical sense. Unsurprisingly, over the weekend we were provided yet another prime example, and what better place for this example but Facebook?

Late last week, cartoon character profile pics began popping up, along with status updates asking others to change theirs to a favorite childhood cartoon character, in an effort to get no human profile pics until December 6^th, said to be “for eliminating violence against children.” Skeptical, I turned to the logical source for answers: Mashable. There it was revealed that this campaign—origin unknown—was really more of a trend. There was even a link to a Facebook Page said to be behind it.

Over the weekend, many users joined in. Then on Sunday there was a different status message, asking all those who’d changed their profile pics to change them back, saying that the meme was actually started by a group of pedophiles, “doing it because kids will accept their friend request faster if they see a cartoon picture.” Several “warnings” statuses popped up, and I was left scratching my head. Really? Sadly, this is a reflection of the times, and real-time, copy and paste “reporting.” Everybody wants to be a reporter, but apparently can’t be bothered with the foundational element of reporting: research.

We take things at face value, refusing to waste our precious time with a simple Google search to verify before sharing information. The result is a misinformation epidemic of epic proportions, which like other epidemics, spreads virally—only in this case, throughout the Internet, instead of our immune systems. Misinformation may be innocent, but is the by-product of disinformation. A message is sent to a network. People in that network peruse the message, then forward to their network. Repeat. Verification of facts is an afterthought—passing the info along quickly is priority, and beating everyone else to the punch reigns supreme, in this “leave me a comment” culture.

This is the effect of word of mouth. The distance a message travels in a matter of minutes is remarkable, even more so through social networks. This is important for brands to remember as they navigate throughout this space. In the blink of an eye, a brand can lose control of its message, have its content/context altered, then retransmitted by citizens—formerly known as potential consumers. We’ve morphed into de facto reporters—that is, we see a story that resonates with us, add our two cents, and pass it on to our audience. But, reporting is an element of journalism, and journalists have long abided by a code of ethics that we do not. We see something that triggers an emotion, and with a click, pass it on. The power of social media is, it puts the power of the media in the people’s hands. But, “with great power comes great responsibility.” And, if we neglect our responsibility to share information accurately, we’re contributing to one of the biggest crises of our time: the miseducation of the masses of the misinformed.

(Photo courtesy of jimjarmo.)