ThinkFirst News

16/12/2020

What do you think will be the outcome of this technology?

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-news-article-summary-tools-brain-reader

06/11/2020

Though not all political leanings are equal, blind allegiance to any of them is a problem.

05/11/2020

We love this definition.

03/11/2020

"Proceed with caution."

26/10/2020

"The Democrats don’t matter, The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with s**t." — Steve Bannon

19/10/2020

Link in bio 🔗 for the original Twitter thread and spreadsheet!

08/10/2020

Regardless of who you support and the accusatory nature of the source article's title, this quote holds true. Be wary of how you feel following any speech or debate to get more clarity.

07/10/2020

Like the war on terror, we can't win the war on misinformation. We need to understand the problem clearly and come up with clear strategies to live with it.

06/10/2020

The very curiosity that helps learn and grow may be working against us when it comes to misinformation.

05/10/2020

Local news has an important role and the current state of affairs is slowly killing it.

02/10/2020

This academic paper shows that reminding people of misinformation best practices is actually effective.

01/10/2020

With the debates happening and election coming up, consider how your media environment will impact your perception of what's happening.

29/09/2020

"During the last weekend of August, a completely inaccurate representation of Center for Disease Control (CDC) data about Coronavirus deaths was trending for hours and was seen and shared by millions before Twitter enforced its own policies and removed the tweet that sparked the trend.

In light of concerns like these, Twitter made changes to its ‘trending topics’ feature, but the changes likely wouldn’t have prevented the situation above. And that’s just one of many examples. In fact, some Twitter employees have been making the case over the past two years that Twitter cannot fully address disinformation on the platform until it eliminates trends." — Mozilla

29/09/2020

Referring to "the media" as a single coordinated unit is a bit problem. In fact, any theory that neatly lumps together any side as good or evil is probably worth dismissing.

28/09/2020

Machine learning can be used to make Twitter a better place but it'll require some heavy lifting upfront.

25/09/2020

Do you know where your data is going?

In her TED Talk, techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explains how your online data informs algorithms that contribute to the development of political polarization and extremism.

24/09/2020

Expertise and evidence could be interesting ways to classify and understand misinformation.

23/09/2020

It's terrifying to consider that most outcomes of online manipulation are successes.

22/09/2020

Artificial intelligence is advancing quickly, and we are currently not sufficiently prepared to combat the waves of disinformation it could generate.

21/09/2020

Artificial intelligence is already used to generate misleading and fabricated content online. However, new advancements will soon make fake content online much harder to manage.⁠
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18/09/2020

The FBI chief's use of "steady drumbeat" is spot on—regardless of whether or not you believe him.

18/09/2020

Know where to apply your skepticism and debunk COVID-19 claims online with the findings from this paper.

17/09/2020

Quotes on the News from The Atlantic

16/09/2020

"Can the look and the feel of a website give information about the trustworthiness of an article?"

The authors of this fascinating paper set out to find the answer to this question. The potential of artificial intelligence in the field of misinformation detection has yet to be fully realized as the technology is still far too nascent. However this paper shows some real promise.

15/09/2020

The media will readily post negative news and harp on it for as long as it generates clicks. When the Oxford vaccine was paused last week, it made major headlines. Now that it has resumed, we haven't heard so much as a peep.

The image above contains the press release from Oxford.

14/09/2020

Introducing a new ThinkFirst segment: Bite-sized Academic Research. We will look at the latest papers coming out on reporting the news and misinformation and distill them to provide you with the essential information.⁠⠀
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Our first post is about user-reported misinformation.⁠⠀
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11/09/2020

This year, the 2020 International Literacy Day theme is about the role of educators in the COVID-19 era and beyond, with focus placed on lifelong learning.

While basic literacy needs to be achieved for individuals to be able to fully participate in their communities, advanced literacy skills allow people to make sense of hidden messages and the role these messages play in shaping their perspectives, decisions, and lives.

Following the media’s role in the COVID-19 crisis, media literacy is taking on newfound importance.

10/09/2020

Sharing untrustworthy information can do real harm to the people who view them. Before sharing information online, consider how trustworthy that piece of information is, and how likely it is to spread beyond your network.

While it's impossible to come up with a graph that truly captures the our confidence relative to the actual reach, we like to create mental models like this one to help guide us in our work.

09/09/2020

Who nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize?

He's a Norwegian lawmaker named Christian Tybring-Gjedde, and his background won't surprise you.

08/09/2020

What are the dangers of the content we create online?⁠
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By definition, social media sites rely on their users to generate content. Without users, there is no content, and there is no value to the platform.⁠
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Unfortunately, information hygiene online is not appreciated or practiced as widely as it should be. We too often underestimate the cost of a share or a forward, especially when it comes to information that could potentially “save” someone’s life.⁠
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Swipe through our carousel to learn more.⁠
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03/09/2020

How quickly does misinformation spread relative to the truth?

In a study from 2018, MIT scholars Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral aimed to answer an important question about the spread of information on social media:

How do truth and falsity diffuse differently?

They did this by analyzing a comprehensive data set of all fact-checked rumour cascades on Twitter from 2006 to 2017 in order to understand the diffusion dynamics of true and false rumours.

They found that, in every category of information, falsehoods were spread faster and more broadly than the truth.

False rumours reached more people, becoming viral through their spread between peer-to-peer networks, not just through bots or broadcast dynamics. The study found that the truth took 6 times as long as a falsehood to reach 1500 people.

"False political news traveled deeper and more broadly, reached more people, and was more viral than any other category of false information"

False news more frequently spread from users who had been Twitter users for significantly less time and were less likely to be verified. They also tended to be less active, followed fewer people, and had fewer followers.

The study concludes with a familiar sentiment: "Understanding how false news spreads is the first step toward containing it."

Source: Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S.
(2018). The spread of true and false news online.

02/09/2020

Types of Misinformation Part 7: Fabricated Content. It is content that is 100% fake and is intended to harm and deceive.

We have arrived at the final part of this series. Thank you to for the excellent guide that made this video possible.

31/08/2020

Is silencing conspiracy theories an attack on free speech?⁠⠀
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It isn’t the first time a conspiracy theory group cries “free speech” when their unproven claims are shut down.⁠⠀
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28/08/2020

Due to the increasing availability of shared videos from first-hand accounts of protesters, it has become increasingly difficult to misrepresent the reality of what is occurring during protests. However, the "protest paradigm" in journalism still upholds a pattern of reporting that actively delegitimizes protests by reporting protest events without appropriate context. Even without spreading disinformation about events, the language used in reporting can be used to shape political opinions of events as they unfold. In the ongoing effort to form your own opinions as a critical media consumer, it's important to look out for the protest paradigm red flags. In the grander scheme of things, hopefully journalists move away from a narrative that undermines the legitimacy of protests and the societal concerns that they raise.

26/08/2020

Disclaimer: We are not American and do not endorse any American political party.

Types of Misinformation Part 6: Manipulated content. From photoshops to video edits, manipulated content is more prevalent than ever. We look at the popular meme about her .

24/08/2020

Why is there no novelty in COVID-19 news?

It is both easy and financially rewarding for the mainstream media to keep recycling the same news. This is counterproductive, not only because it overwhelms us with irrelevant information, but also because it can lead to invalid conclusions prematurely.

Even though the pace and availability of Research and Development is unprecedented, the scientific results not being vulgarized and delivered to society is a missed opportunity.

21/08/2020

If you'd like to help us keep doing what we do, we'd started a Ko-Fi page so you can support us financially.

By supporting us you're helping us combat misinformation and create deeper opportunities for people to improve their news consumption.

When you make a contribution, we'll add you to our Close Friends on Instagram so we can communicate directly with you and all our supporters through exclusive Story updates.

https://ko-fi.com/thinkfirstnews

Support ThinkFirst News with monthly contributions to create new opportunities for people to improve their news consumption.

21/08/2020

A marked decline in paid print readership over the past decade has led various news sources to implement a "paywall" to access their articles. When cost is a barrier, the circulation of news becomes restricted. This is significant because this impacts the availability of news and limits the range of topics, and perspectives on those topics, that may be shared amongst social circles. As a result, the paywall acts as another obstacle to understanding the bigger/full picture of current events in the world. The lack of accessible genuine/reliable information adds another layer to the difficulty of combatting both mis- and disinformation.

19/08/2020

Misinformation Part 5: Imposter Content. When genuine sources are impersonated.
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First Draft News guide: https://firstdraftnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Information_Disorder_Digital_AW.pdf?x76701
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17/08/2020

Which theory should you believe in complex situations? If someone you know provides with you with a or theory that seems totally implausible, you can use Occam's Razor to assess the claim.