League of Women Voters to Host Online Seminar on Navigating Misinformation and Not Getting Duped
Acclaimed author to help residents separate truth from lies
By: Darrell Ehrlick for the Daily Montanan
The problem with Google is that it is trying to please you.
When most people search for information, they use a search engine, often Google, and through its algorithm, it presents the information it thinks you may be looking for.
But whether that information is correct or credible is another thing completely.
Stanford Professor Sam Wineburg, who is a national expert on how to navigate the information superhighway online so that you’re less likely to get duped, explains it this way: Search for information that demonstrates National Football League ratings are plummeting, and Google will find articles that discuss lower ratings. Use the same search engine to look for information that shows viewership at high levels, and a different set of equally credible looking links will appear.
Wineburg will be presenting an online seminar this Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. on March 6, hosted through the Helena League of Women Voters and the Helena Public Library. The goal of the seminar will be helping residents become more discerning about online information and what’s credible.
Wineburg is the author of a new book, “Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less and Make Better Decisions about What To Believe Online.” He co-wrote the book with Mike Caulfield.
The challenge is: Navigating information in a digital world, when we learn to read in an analog format, Wineburg said. For example, books, articles and information presented in school is vetted by subject experts, teachers and librarians. We’re taught to trust what we read because it’s been verified.
“All those things we depend on and all bets are off in a digital world,” Wineburg said.
Instead, lines between fact and fiction can be easily blurred. That is only increasing in a world that is integrating content generated by artificial intelligence, and misinformation and disinformation are common terms.
“We have erroneous ways of judging credibility,” Wineburg told the Daily Montanan.
For example, he points out that much of the curriculum developed to gauge digital and online content was developed 20 to 30 years ago. For example, many experts still advise to go to the “about” page on websites to gauge credibility.
“Well, if I have money to build a website that aims to look credible, don’t you think I am going to know how to write an ‘about’ page that is convincing?” he said.
The problem is “inappropriate importation” or taking something that is true in one format and using it in another, he said.
For example, Anaheim Angels’ superstar slugger Mike Trout is a legendary home-run hitter, but he doesn’t use that same swing for golf.
“What works in one environment does not work in another,” Wineburg said.
And many people take a legitimate looking website as proof that the information there must be authentic.
“Their eyes deceive them. What you see is not what it appears to be,” Wineburg said.
He also said that because the entire world’s storehouse of information is collected on the internet, it makes information abundant, but knowledge more tricky. For example, during COVID-19 there were reports of Ivermectin, an antiparasitic for people and a veterinarian-used horse dewormer, was an effective treatment for the virus. However, Wineburg said that even if people wanted to read articles on COVID-19 or Ivermectin, most lacked a background in chemistry, pharmaceuticals, clinical trials and statistics to know how to determine the correct answer to whether the off-label use would cure the deadly pandemic disease.
“We put ourselves in harm’s way,” Wineburg said. “We should be more cautious.”
He said looking for the experts and the people who have the credentials to know is important.
“Google is a business, but we use it as a tool,” Wineburg said.
There is hope, however. As a professor and educator, he’s seen what a little bit of knowledge and critical thinking can do. For example, he points to six hours of classroom instruction on critically evaluating sources doubles the average high school senior’s ability to detect unreliable or untrustworthy information on the internet. And that’s what Wineburg advocates: A little more investment in critical thinking can pay huge dividends.
“We have to recognize this is not a tool or a skill for just teenagers,” he said.
Want to learn more?
For those wanting to hear more from Sam Wineburg or to register for the webinar please follow this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JM9zfufZSPGVbgEEU7qmSw and an invitation will be emailed to you.
The seminar, “How to Navigate Misinformation Online” will take place at 6:30 p.m. on March 6.
It is being hosted by the League of Women Voters and the Helena Public Library.
Those wanting to attend in person can go to the Helena Public Library, 120 S. Last Chance Gulch.
The seminar will not be recorded.
There near the top of the list on the League of Women Voters webpage is their support for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a system based not on the merit of one's efforts, but on the skin color, sexual identity or ideology of a given participant. You can thereby assess that their idea of misinformation will likely be anything conservative in nature.