The UK Confronts Our Distorted Online World
Future News 159: An experiment in fake news, false narratives and freedom
‘The Walls of Beliefs’ is a new story the British government is telling itself about false stories its citizens are spreading. Its authors want to tackle an old phenomenon which has been super-charged in our social media age – disinformation.
“Overturning false beliefs is not as straightforward as simply supplying true information, or debunking falsehoods,” the Government Communication Services’ Behavioural Science Team warned.
They also explained four strategies to counter harmful falsehoods. Including ‘managing behaviours’, ‘proactive promotion’, ‘reactive response’ and ‘watch and wait’.
But each strategy has to be deployed carefully because “our beliefs are like the bricks that make up a wall”. Sometimes bricks can be removed, sometimes they can be replaced, but other times they have to remain in place, or so the story goes.
While interventions may be necessary in some instances – false medical cures, for instance – other beliefs like astrology and the view that you can’t eat before you swim can be left alone.
Avoiding any link to specific beliefs, values or worldviews is one of the keys to success, the scientists said.
The story, published in September 2022, is part of the UK government’s wider efforts to tackle disinformation and improve digital literacy, which is in a sorry state.
Media regulator OfCom found in 2022 that only 11% of 12-17s could correctly select survey questions showing a social media post and the components of the post which reflected that it was genuine.
“More than a fifth of 12-17s were unable to detect a fake online social media profile (22%); a quarter of these thought that the profile picture and posted photos proved that it was real,” the paper added.
Another, equally worrying, study found that only 2% of primary and secondary school children are able to identify false information online when taking a misinformation quiz.
The government has subsequently put a series of media literacy boosting measures in the Online Safety Bill, a controversial and far-ranging piece of draft legislation which is before the House of Lords.
As one example, OfCom will be charged with doing more media literacy promotion. The bill will also set out a new definition of media literacy.
Before the draft legislation is (or isn’t) enacted into law, Boris Johnson’s government produced its own online media literacy strategy in 2021.
This included the creation of a taskforce, the provision of grant funding to training organisations for schools and other education establishments, a UK Media Literacy Forum, a ‘Safer Internet Day’ and a resource hub.
Crucially, no dedicated online media literacy course has been created. Prior governments have argued that digital literacy is taught across the curriculum in England.
But the dire findings from the aforementioned OfCom report show that non-compulsory lessons like ‘critical theory’ or ‘media studies’ are simply not boosting online media literacy to acceptable levels. A re-think is clearly needed.
Alongside the British government’s efforts to understand disinformation and its online media literacy strategy, there are tougher, more contentious measures.
The semi-secret Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) has caused a stir recently after The Telegraph ran a series of articles around the organisation.
The unit, amongst other things, works with social media platforms to monitor, counter and takedown ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’.
It also helps spread government publicity campaigns online. Sometimes that involves paid-for posts, other times the social media platforms offer the government free credits.
Public documents show that the CDU was “stood-up” in at least three instances. Under Johnson’s watch during the 2019 European Elections, at the 2019 General Election and from the 5 March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The CDU does not respond to all pieces of potential misinformation or disinformation but takes a strategic view of an issue to offer structural and strategic interventions,” the government described its role as.
“The CDU’s response to these types of information is issue dependent, but where potentially harmful content is identified that breaches a platform’s terms and conditions, the CDU flag that content to the platform to ensure it can be swiftly reviewed and acted on.”
The cross-government unit worked closely with the Cabinet Office’s now defunct Rapid Response Unit (RRU), which was established in 2018 to counter ‘false narratives’.
At one point the RRU sat in Number 10 and produced three daily email alerts on the government’s top stories and themes, outlining what was gaining traction online.
Beyond the national emergency, the CDU lives on but it is now moving from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. The switch is an interesting one.
When a House of Lords Committee recommended that the government “should assess the ways that misinformation and disinformation about climate change and the environment online can be challenged”, ministers cited the CDU.
It is unclear what its new role and focus will be. But it is clear that any sane government should take disinformation extremely seriously.
There is clear and undeniable evidence of state and non-state actors using misinformation and disinformation campaigns. It has been going on for decades.
The scariest thing now is the combination of AI and social media technologies giving these campaigns a quantum leap. But equally of concern is bodies like the CDU going wholly unchecked and operating entirely under the radar.
As UK lawmakers were warned in 2020, the CDU has the potential to “wield significant influence” over online content. More transparency is needed. Otherwise we will have another story on our hands,
It will have nothing to do with walls, but it could be reminiscent of the Information Research Department. A shadowy unit which once influenced and worked with the world’s media from an office in Whitehall.
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A really thorny modern problem. With so much information and so much technological change what we know is true today might be proven to be untrue tomorrow. The macro issue is Societies and even civilisations are most successful when there are social norms and shared beliefs. Right now we a fracturing into online tribes and factions.
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