Hitting the Books: Modern social media has made misinformation so, so much worse
, by David L. Sloss, published by Stanford University Press, ©2022 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All Rights Reserved.Governments were practicing disinformation long before the advent of social media. However, social media accelerates the spread of false information by enabling people to reach a large audience at low cost. Social media accelerates the spread of both misinformation and disinformation.
Several features of the current information environment accelerate the spread of misinformation. Before the rise of the internet, major media companies like CBS and the New York Times had the capacity to distribute stories to millions of people. However, they were generally bound by professional standards of journalistic ethics so that they would not deliberately spread false stories. They were far from perfect, but they did help prevent widespread dissemination of false information.
In the past two decades, we have seen the growth of an entire industry of paid political consultants who have developed expertise in utilizing social media to influence political outcomes. The Polish firm discussed earlier in this chapter is one example. Philip Howard, a leading expert on misinformation, claims:"It is safe to say that every country in the world has some homegrown political consulting firm that specializes in marketing political misinformation.