Misinformation is ubiquitous in everyday life and exists on spectrum from innocuous to harmful. Communities manage issues of credibility, trust, and information quality continuously, so as to to mitigate the impact of misinformation when possible and evolve social norms and intentional governance to delineate between problematic disinformation and little white lies. Such coproduction of governance and (mis-)information raises a complex set of ethical, economic, political, social, and technological questions that requires systematic study and careful deliberation. The Conclusion discusses key themes across chapters in this volume, as well as connections to emergent themes from other books in this series, considering implications for future research, everyday life, and the governing knowledge commons framework.

Social media including Twitter can be considered knowledge commons, as a community of users creates and shares information through them. Although popular, Twitter is not free of problems, especially mis/dis-information that is rampant in social media. A better understanding of how users manage day-to-day issues on social media is needed because it can help identify strategies and tools to tackle the issue. This study investigated the actions and preferences of users who found mis/dis-information problematic on Twitter. Focusing on the action arena of knowledge commons, this study explored what participants did to manage problems, what they thought others should do, and what groups they thought should take responsibility. Four hundred responses were collected through an online survey. The top actions taken by participants were unfollowing, fact-checking, and muting. The participants wanted Twitter, Inc. to ban problematic users and to provide better tools to help filter and report issues. They viewed Twitter and individual users, especially influencers, as the groups most responsible for managing Twitter problems. Differences in actions and preferences by gender and frequency of Twitter use were found. Implications for policies, system design, and research were discussed.

Lay people often are misinformed about what is a secure password, what are the various types of security threats to passwords or password-protected resources, and the risks of certain compromising practices such as reusing passwords and required password expiration. Expert knowledge about password security has evolved considerably over time, but on many points, research supports general agreement among experts about best practices. Remarkably, though perhaps not surprisingly, there is a sizable gap between what experts agree on and what lay people believe and do. The knowledge gap might exist and persist because of intermediaries, namely professionals and practitioners as well as technological interfaces such as password meters and composition rules. In this chapter, we identify knowledge commons governance dilemmas that arise within and between different communities (expert, professional, lay) and examine implications for other everyday misinformation problems.

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.

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.

This chapter explores patterns of misinformation in online conspiracy theory information worlds such as QAnon, as seen in publicly accessible Facebook pages. In particular, it examines issues related to expertise, authority, and gatekeeping; overt acts of misreading; the concept of connecting the dots, or seeing patterns and interconnections between often widely disparate phenomena; and interpretations of the symbolism in everyday life phenomena such as gestures, corporate logos, and celebrity photographs. It argues that, through its ubiquity and persistence, conspiracy theory misinformation functions as a persistent yet de-centered everyday activity, melding deeply serious interpretive acts with elements of gaming and sense-making.