According to a new survey from statistics in Canada found that, almost half of the Canadians, which is about 43 per cent, says that they are finding it harder than even three years ago to tell the difference between what is true and false online.
The data from the Survey Series on People and their Communities found that many Canadians are very concerned about misinformation , defined as news or information which is false, misleading or inaccurate.
Canadians say it’s becoming more difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction even compared to three years ago, when misinformation and disinformation — false information purposefully intended to mislead — began circulating about many issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Timothy Caulfield, a University of Alberta professor in the Faculty of Law and School of Public Health, said this growing concern is not shocking.
He said that, this really is a period of misinformation and other research, international research, has found similar results in fact in some jurisdictions, and even higher concern about misinformation right up there with climate change in some places.
Caulfield says the difficulty individuals are facing in telling apart fact from fiction is due to many reasons. Research has shown information overload can make individuals more susceptible to misinformation, but on top of that, misinformation and disinformation is becoming more sophisticated and the misinformation mongers are becoming more adept with resources out there to use, including images, text and even fake science in a more sophisticated way.
But in addition to that, there is a universal distrust in the public and those spreading false information have an aim of spreading distrust which in turn creates even more chances of misinformation.
Often, when faced with misinformation, individuals look to fact check what is being said and the survey found 96 per cent of the population has verified information which they encountered at some point.
An assistant professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communications Sun-Ha-Hong said that, the people who teaches courses on mis- and disinformation, told in an interview that Canadians should not feel discouraged if they can’t fact check everything.
He said, the truth is that there’s a hard limit to what we can do as individuals because there’s no way that we can go and fact check to oblivion every single thing we find online.
He notes that, Canadians will remain vulnerable to some misinformation, and there is the tendency among many who will find some information, read it fast and try to make sense of it and then potentially have an emotional response to it.
The best way to combat this is by changing our way of thinking when it comes to information.
Earlier this year, a report by U.S.-based geopolitical risk analysts at the Eurasia Group advised that fast advancements in artificial intelligence could help misinformation succeed in 2023.
It also added that, large language models like GPT-3 and the soon-to-be-released GPT4 would be able to reliably pass the Turing test — a Rubicon for machines ability to imitate human intelligence. That joined with digitally-altered videos which can simulate individuals, often called deepfakes — facial recognition technology and voice synthesis software will render control over one’s likeness a relic of the past.
When it comes to the ability to fact check, almost one in 10 Canadians said in the Statistics Canada survey that they didn’t know how to do so, with 15 per cent indicating that it was too difficult to verify information.
Marianne Mader, CEO of the Canadian Association of Science Centers said that, there are many approaches where individuals can follow when trying to determine whether what they’re looking at may be factual.
Mader said it points to why education can be crucial in helping identify and combat misinformation, but noted that it’s something to do at all ages and there’s no limitation to how old you can be to access this knowledge.
However, Mader suggested that there were other recommendations she would make that were not necessarily touched on by the survey, such as understanding the tactics used by spreaders of misinformation.
There are strategies which are used that tug at your emotions which make information go viral in some ways. So, understanding those tactics which are being used to help individuals in a way be inoculated to misinformation and not being involved in spreading it.
Canadians and people across the world are likely to see misinformation and disinformation used against them, but Caulfield says if you are trying to combat it, one of the biggest things is to practice is patience.
