EverydaySpy Podcast - The Curious Case of Sharing Lies

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

Ever wonder why fake news and false information spreads so quickly? You see headlines and news pundits talking about fact and fiction all the time, but the truth behind how bad information spreads is simpler than you might think. In this episode, Andrew explains where research and espionage intersect and result in misinformation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to our next situational report, our next sit-rep in this season where we're discussing how to master information. Now, I want to share something with you that is incredibly powerful to me. We are all in the middle of an election right now. We're in the middle of a global crisis. We're in the middle of an economic crisis. And we see all of this information constantly flooding us from all around. You see it on TV.

It pops up on your notifications. Your grandparents, your friends, your parents are forwarding it to you via email. And of course, all of your friends are talking about what's happening in the conventions, what's happening in the headlines, who's the new vice president pick? What's the current trend going on in Twitter? You can't escape information. And you especially can't escape information when it comes to. through social circles. Social media circles, obviously, like your Facebook, your Twitter,

your LinkedIn, et cetera, but also social circles, the traditional social circles, where it's just friends and friends, friends, friends of neighbors, family, friends, everybody seems to have something to say. Now, there was a recent study done that looked into why fake news specifically spreads so easily. Now, the study was built around social media, but I found that it was so powerful because social media is really just an automated technical version

of societal norms in general. Now, when I looked at this study, I realized that the results of the study, the results pointing to why fake news spreads so easily, weren't really surprising. What was surprising to me was how simple it was.

to stop fake news from spreading. Because if it's so simple, why is it that we consistently see FBI and the federal government? We even saw the National Counterintelligence Center come out and tell us to be vigilant and aware of misinformation and disinformation in social media. So we have everyone from the federal government to Facebook and Twitter who are putting in new algorithms and new technological barriers to try to combat misinformation and disinformation, but we have scientific results that are showing us that it's actually very simple to stop the spread of fake news. So I wanted to share this study with you so that you could kind of have that

same aha moment that I had. Now, the study included 1,700 American adults, all of which who volunteered to participate in an online experiment. Now, in the experiment, it was pretty simple. Each volunteer was shown a series of news headlines and articles posted to a social media feed. Some of the articles were factual, which means they were real. Other articles were not factual. They were fake. The research team knew which articles were real and which articles were not, but of course the volunteers did not know. Now, the first part of the study let the team look at how the volunteers interacted with the real

and the fake news that they were sent. They studied to see if the participants read the news. Did they share it? Did they simply ignore it? After completing that first round of study, the researchers found that the volunteers were more likely to share the fake news stories with their peer group on social media than they were to share the real news stories.

That was the first result. I don't think any of that is surprising to you. like I said, it wasn't surprising to me. But essentially what we have here is 1,700 people, the majority of which were willing to voluntarily forward and share fake news. Not that they knew it was fake, but they were more apt to share a story that was fake than they were apt to share a story that was real. That doesn't really tell us any of the why.

But what it does show us is the power of social media to spread disinformation and misinformation. Not because our friends and family are trying to lie to us, not because our friends and family even understand if the story was true or not true. But there was something about the story that they thought might be interesting to us. So they shared it. And that's the crux of social media. That's the heart of the challenge. We want to share information that is interesting to us, and we want to share it with people who we think would be interested in that information. We don't ask ourselves first, is this true or is this not true? We ask ourselves first, is this interesting or is this not interesting?

A while back, I did an interview called Shadow Lessons with a KGB agent named Jack Barski, and we dug deep into exactly how Russian influence operations are executed against the United States. If you haven't seen that interview, if this is the first time that you've heard of shadow lessons, go hit Everydayspy.com. You'll find it there. You'll find all the details of my interview with Jack. And one of the things that we looked at is exactly how influence campaigns worldwide, whether it's by CIA or KGB or MSS or Mossad, influence operations always have to center on an existing issue. Some existing issue that lends both credibility but also immediate interest. And fringe issues are perfect for this, because if you can land on a fringe issue and you can

support a fringe issue in a foreign country, then what you're able to do is gain a lot of traction, a lot of activity, a lot of followers, a lot of reaction because that issue is seen as credible in a small group. And the more that small group talks about it, then the more reaction that you see from people who oppose that small group, people who support that small group, but also all those people in the middle who don't outwardly admit whether they agree or disagree. So that's the first half of this experiment, right? They found that of the 1700 participants, the vast majority, were sharing fake news and not sharing real news.

So they completed that first round of study. And then they started the second round of study. And the second round is the round that really blew my mind. Now, in the second half of this experiment, the researchers, asked the exact same volunteers to rate the accuracy of one headline. That's it. So they interrupted them in the middle of their day and they said, hey, here's a headline. I want you to rate the accuracy of this one story before you choose what you do with it. Some people were given a real headline. Some people were given a fake headline, but they were all asked to look at it and consider its

accuracy. Now, from that point forward, from that point until the end of the experiment, what happened was that every participant performed almost 300% better at ignoring the fake news and only sharing the real news. Think about that. The only thing that changed was that the experiment researchers interrupted The pattern, the pattern of spontaneously forwarding whatever these people thought was interesting. The researchers interrupted that pattern and said, we want you to consider the accuracy of one headline. They didn't say consider the accuracy of all headlines. They didn't say consider the accuracy from this point forward.

All they did was say, hey, here's one story. Take a look at this one story and tell us, you know, make an assessment. Do you think it's real or do you think it's fake? That's all they did. But once people were primed to consider accuracy, once people were primed to consider fact, that became their foundation for how they interacted with information for the rest of the experiment. And we're not talking about like a 10 or 15% improvement. 300% improvement.

Average people with no training, no training, no extra knowledge, no additional information. All they were given was a single. question that primed them to consider accuracy. And once they were primed to consider accuracy, they automatically looked at the accuracy of every story moving forward and made that part of their filter before they forwarded that information on. So prior to the midway point of the experiment, people were sharing more fake news than real news. And from the midpoint of the experiment on, after they were primed to consider accuracy, they performed 300% better

at identifying and sharing only the real news. You see, misinformation and fake news and disinformation rely on people making the mistake of thinking like people think. We think emotionally. We think reactively. We think instinctively. There's no great science behind covert influence. There's no great science behind Russian meddling

or even American meddling in foreign countries. All we're doing is capitalizing on people's behaviors to act like people act. We think to ourselves, what would be interesting to someone else? We think to ourselves, what am I interested in? What aligns with my personal beliefs? What aligns with my personal opinions? What aligns with my peer group? And once we filter everything through that lens first, then we start to share information.

We don't ask ourselves first, what is true and what is not true? If you want to master information, if you want to help share true, valuable, meaningful information with other people, it's just a matter of changing the first question that you ask yourself. All you have to ask yourself is, is this true? Can this be proven? And if it can, if it is true, do I want to share it? You don't have to ask yourself first, is this going to be something that starts a conversation? Is this going to be something that's interesting? Is this something that my friends will approve of? That's all that they did in this experiment. And it transformed the results of every volunteer. They simply asked them to consider accuracy before they considered curiosity. And that is everyday espionage. Everyday espionage is dedicated to one thing, educating everyday people.

I know that not everyone will listen, but those who listen will learn. If you learned something new today, click subscribe, review, and share the podcast with a friend. Find me on social media at EverydaySpy or on my website, Everydayspy.com. If you are up for a special challenge, visit Everydayspy.com forward slash operations. And join me for an authentic spy. training mission. And above all else, remember that knowledge is freedom.