This chapter examines conservative attacks on social media, and their validity. Conservatives have long accused the major social media platforms of left-leaning bias, claiming that platform content moderation policies unfairly target conservative content for blocking, labeling, and deamplification. They point in particular to events during the COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as President Trump’s deplatforming, as proof of such bias. In 2021, these accusations led both Florida and Texas to adopt laws regulating platform content moderation in order to combat the alleged bias. But a closer examination of the evidence raises serious doubts about whether such bias actually exists. An equally plausible explanation for why conservatives perceive bias is that social media content moderation policies, in particular against medical disinformation and hate speech, are more likely to affect conservative than other content. For this reason, claims of platform bias remain unproven. Furthermore, modern conservative attacks on social media are strikingly inconsistent with the general conservative preference not to interfere with private businesses.

This chapter presents a discussion about the interconnection between the proliferation of sources of information in a “post-truth” era. In particular, it considers the question of what the concept of “post-truth” actually means in the context of prevailing understandings of veracity and sincerity in discourse and communication. It also places this notion against the broader discursive practice of (de)legitimization and how the digital environment has added layers of complexity to how users – citizens – negotiate information and the idea of truth. In particular, attention is given to how mis- and disinformation in a post-truth context can be proliferated and disseminated in the online context and the specific features of communication the users might utilize to do so. Overall, this chapter explores current understandings of the notion of post-truth in public discourse before focusing more explicitly on how it is used in public discourse by influential actors such as Donald Trump. It will also consider the role that post-truth discourse plays in populist discourse as well the issues posed in broader online communication in the virtual context.

In contrast to conservatives, progressives argue that platforms don’t block enough content. In particular, progressive critics point to the prevalence of allegedly harmful content on social media platforms, including politically manipulative content, mis- and disinformation (especially about medical issues), harassment and doxing, and hate speech. They argue that social media algorithms actively promote such content to increase engagement, resulting in many forms of social harm including greater political polarization. And they argue (along with conservatives) that social media platforms have been especially guilty of permitting materials harmful to children to remain accessible. As with conservative attacks however, the progressive war on social media is rife with exaggerations and rests on shaky empirical grounds. In particular, there is very little proof that that platform algorithms increase political polarization, or even proof that social media harms children. Moreover, while not all progressive attacks on social media lack a foundation, they are all rooted in an entirely unrealistic expectation that perfect content moderation is possible.

Chapter Four contends that the electronic amplification of false and misleading election-related claims poses a significant threat to American democracy. To address that threat, we urgently need government regulation of companies that provide electronic amplification services. However, the Supreme Court has created a body of First Amendment doctrine that places Congress in a constitutional straightjacket, making it almost impossible for Congress to enact the type of legislation that is urgently needed to protect our democracy. This chapter sketches the outlines of a proposed federal statute that would restrict the electronic amplification of election-related misinformation. It explains why any statute along those lines – indeed, any statute that might be moderately effective in protecting American democracy from the threat posed by the electronic amplification of misinformation – would almost certainly be deemed unconstitutional under the Court’s current First Amendment doctrine. Therefore, the Court must revise its First Amendment doctrine to help save American democracy.

Historically, local newsgatherers played a key democracy-enhancing role by keeping their communities informed about local events and holding local elected officials to account. As the market for local news has evaporated, more and more cities have become “news deserts.” Meanwhile, fewer national legacy news providers can afford to invest in the processes and expertise needed to produce high-quality news about our increasingly complex world. The true crisis of press legitimacy is the declining cultural investment in the systematic gathering of high-quality news produced by independent, transparent, and trustworthy sources.

Although scholars usually point to a handful of cultural and economic factors as undermining news quality and press credibility, various critics now identify a more covert culprit: the US Supreme Court. The Court is partly to blame for the press’s declining credibility, these critics claim, because the Court’s First Amendment decisions hinder the ability of state defamation law to hold the press accountable for defamatory falsehoods. The implication is that the press would regain much of its credibility if the Court would remove these constitutional barriers – especially the requirement that public officials and public figures demonstrate “actual malice” on the part of the press for a defamation claim to prevail. Nonetheless, as this chapter explains, the current landscape of high-profile defamation cases, and the public reaction to them, casts doubt on whether things could be so easy.

After the first 24–48 hours of a health emergency, the health emergency enters the maintenance phase. During the maintenance phase health officials provide maintenance messages that contain deeper risk explanations, promote interventions, continue to make commitments to the community, and address rumors and misinformation. Health emergencies often spend a lot of time in the maintenance phase, so it is imperative that emergency risk communicators provide clear, coordinated, and consistent messages about the health risks. By communicating credible, accurate, and actionable health information, a health agency can demonstrate the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) principles of Be First, Be Right, Be Credible, Show Respect, Express Empathy, and Promote Action. The chapter provides practical steps on how to write maintenance messages and provides quick response communication planning and implementation steps such as identifying communication objectives, audiences, key messages, and channels and developing communication products/materials. This chapter also includes key tips related to spokespeople, partner agencies, and call centers to ensure message consistency is achieved during the response. The rumor management framework is highlighted. A student case study analyzes the Mpox outbreak in Louisiana using the CERC framework. Reflection questions are included at the end of the chapter.

Behind the black boxes of algorithms promoting or adding friction to posts, technical design decisions made to affect behavior, and institutions stood up to make decisions about content online, it can be easy to lose track of the heteromation involved, the humans spreading disinformation and, on the other side, moderating or choosing not to moderate it. This can be aptly shown in the case of the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp during Brazil’s 2018 general elections. Since WhatsApp runs on a peer-to-peer architecture, there was no algorithm curating content according to the characteristics or demographics of the users, which is how filter bubbles work on Facebook. Instead, a human infrastructure was assembled to create a pro-Bolsonaro environment on WhatsApp and spread misinformation to bolster his candidacy. In this paper, we articulate the labor executed by the human infrastructure of misinformation as hetoromation.

The spread of false and misleading information, hate speech, and harassment on WhatsApp has generated concern about elections, been implicated in ethnic violence, and been linked to other disastrous events across the globe. On WhatsApp, we see the activation of what is known as the phenomenon of hidden virality, which characterizes how unvetted, insular discourse on encrypted, private platforms takes on a character of truth and remains mostly unnoticed until causing real-world harm. In this book chapter, we discuss what factors contribute to the activation of hidden virality on WhatsApp while answering the following questions: 1) To what extent and how do WhatsApp’s sociotechnical affordances encourage the sharing of mis- and disinformation on the platform, and 2) How do WhatsApp’s users perceive and deal with mis- and disinformation daily? Our findings indicate that WhatsApp’s affordance of perceived privacy actively encourages the spread of false and offensive content on the platform, especially when combined with it being impossible for users to report inappropriate content anonymously. Groups in which such content is prominent are tightly controlled by administrators who typically hold dominant cultural positions (e.g., they are senior and male). Users who feel hurt by false and offensive content need to personally ask administrators for its removal. But this is not an easy job, as it requires users to challenge dominant cultural norms, causing them stress and anxiety. Users would rather have WhatsApp take on the burden of moderating problematic content. We close the chapter by situating our findings in relation to cultural and economic power dynamics. We bring attention to the fact that if WhatsApp does not start to take action to reduce and prevent the real-world harm of hidden virality, its affordances of widespread accessibility and encryption will keep promoting its market advantages, leaving the burden of moderating content to fall on minoritized users.

This chapter focuses on how it is possible to develop and retain false beliefs even when the relevant information we receive is not itself misleading or inaccurate. In common usage, the term misinformed refers to someone who holds false beliefs, and the most obvious source of false beliefs is inaccurate information. In some cases, however, false beliefs arise, not from inaccurate or misleading information, but rather from cognitive biases that influence the way that information is interpreted and recalled. Other cognitive biases limit the ability of new and accurate information to correct existing misconceptions. We begin the chapter by examining the role of cognitive biases and heuristics in creating misconceptions, taking as our context misconceptions commonly observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We then explain why accurate information does not always or necessarily correct misconceptions, and in certain situations can even entrench false beliefs. Throughout the chapter, we outline strategies that information designers can use to reduce the possibility that false beliefs arise from, and persist in the face of, accurate information.

The time lag between when research is completed and when it is used in clinical practice can be as long as two decades. This chapter considers the dissemination and implementation of research findings. It also explores better ways to make research findings understood and used. On the one hand, we recognize the need to get new research into practice as soon as possible. On the other hand, we challenge the trend toward rapid implementation. When results are put into practice prematurely, patients may suffer unnecessary consequences of insufficiently evaluated interventions. We offer several examples of Nobel Prize winning interventions that had unintentional harmful effects that were unknown when the prize was awarded. To address these problems, we support the need for greater transparency in reporting studies results, open access to clinical research data, and the application of statistical tools such as forest plots and funnel plots that might reveal data irregularities.

Reading or writing online user-reviews of places like a restaurant or a hair salon is a common information practice. Through its Local Guides Platform, Google calls on users to add reviews of places directly to Google Maps, as well as edit store hours and report fake reviews. Based on a case study of the platform, this chapter examines the governance structures that delineate the role Local Guides play in regulating the Google Maps information ecosystem and how it frames useful information vs. bad information. We track how the Local Guides Platform constructs a community of insiders who make Google Maps better vs. the misinformation that the platform positions as an exterior threat infiltrating Google Maps universally beneficial global mapping project. Framing our analysis through Kuo and Marwick’s critique of the dominant misinformation paradigm, one often based on hegemonic ideals of truth and authenticity. We argue that review and moderation practices on Local Guides further standardize constructions of misinformation as the product of a small group of outlier bad actors in an otherwise convivial information ecosystem. Instead, we consider how the platform’s governance of crowdsourced moderation, paired with Google Maps’ project of creating a single, universal map, helps to homogenize narratives of space that then further normalize the limited scope of Google’s misinformation paradigm.