2. Mantra for the Day
“Everyone is
entitled to his
own opinion,
but not to his
own facts.”
- Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-
2003)
OLLI Fall 2019
3. The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
OLLI Fall 2019
• 13th century explorer Sir John
Mandeville sent reports back
from Central Asia
• Delicious lamb attached by
an umbilical stem
• Believed by the learned and
well-read deep into the 17th
century
• Debunked in full in 1887 by
naturalist Henry Lee
5. Information Overload
• On average, Americans consume 34
gigabytes of content and encounter 100,000
written words from various sources in a
single day.
– International Journal of Communication, 6 (2012), 980–1000
OLLI Fall 2019
6. What is Fake News?
• Fake news may be a modern form
of yellow journalism that consists of
deliberate disinformation, OR misleading
information intended to garner views and
clicks at the expense of accuracy. It is
spread via traditional news media (print and
broadcast) or online social media.
OLLI Fall 2019
What is Fake News?
• Fake news may be a modern form
of yellow journalism that consists of
deliberate disinformation, OR misleading
information intended to garner views and
clicks at the expense of accuracy. It is
spread via traditional news media (print and
broadcast) or online social media.
OLLI Fall 2019
7. Who Cares?
• A well-informed
electorate is a
prerequisite for a
healthy democracy.
OLLI Fall 2019
• The Russian disinformation
campaign ahead of 2016
election relied on people
sharing emotionally
charged images and articles
We make better decisions when we have better, more
complete information
9. Misinformation vs.
Disinformation
• Misinformation: Incorrect or misleading
information inadvertently shared which
influences public opinion or obscures the
truth
• Disinformation: False information
deliberately and often covertly spread in
order to influence public opinion or obscure
the truth
OLLI Fall 2019
13. “Truthiness”
Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement
is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual
or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual
examination, or facts — coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005
OLLI Fall 2019
15. Characteristics of a Conspiracy
Theory
• A rollicking good story, with elaborate twists and turns
• Assignment of agency and malign intention to some large
and vague organization or power
• A hefty dose of secrecy (this makes up for a lack or
provable facts – they are hidden!)
• The sense that the actual truth is known only to a very few
people (conspiracists want to feel special, and in highly
select company)
• Efforts to discredit them tend to reinforce them. They are
EVIDENCE that conspiracists are “on to” the conspiracy
OLLI Fall 2019
16. Not all conspiracies are
theoretical
• Watergate
- It was the coverup
• MK Ultra
– CIA experiments in mind-control – with some
major lapses in informed consent
• COINTELPRO
– FBI infiltrated civil-rights and anti-war
organizations to sow dissent
OLLI Fall 2019
17. Examples of Conspiracy Theories
• Chemtrails
• 9/11 inside job
• Sandy Hook was a “false flag”
• Pizzagate – Hilary Clinton was running a
child sex ring our of a DC-area pizzeria??
• Flat-Earthers
• So many more …
OLLI Fall 2019
18. Other Kinds of Misinformation
• Clickbait
– Exciting/suggestive headline does not deliver with facts
– Designed to generate views by overpromising, underdelivering
• Decontextualized information (old news)
– Stories published months or years prior, shared in the context of
a breaking news story. “Still true” doesn’t mean it isn’t
misleading.
• Satire
– The Onion vs. “Not the Onion.” Appeals to our sense of the
absurd and can trap us by seeming legitimate and consistent
OLLI Fall 2019
21. Poe’s Law
“Without a winking smiley or other
blatant display of humor, it is
impossible to create a parody of
fundamentalism that someone won't
mistake for the real thing.” – Nathan
Poe, 2005
(since expanded to include all kinds
of extremism)
OLLI Fall 2019
22. Fake Visuals
• There’s Photoshop … and then there’s Deep
Fakes
• Using machine learning to fake videos is
getting more and more sophisticated
• “Video evidence” might not be
OLLI Spring 2018
Fake Visuals
• There’s Photoshop … and then there’s Deep
Fakes
• Using machine learning to fake videos is
getting more and more sophisticated
• “Video evidence” might not be
OLLI Spring 2018
