Disinformation and Misinformation’s Impacts on Organizations
Everything you see online isn’t true. Some online content is deliberately misleading, while other inaccurate online content is irresponsibly shared without fact-checking. Erroneous social media content - also known as disinformation and misinformation - can have far-reaching impacts on organizations. Sensationalized online content can spread like wildfire across popular social media platforms, misleading millions of people across the globe before viral inaccuracies are challenged or addressed. Dis/misinformation can have disastrous consequences for the people and organizations whose lives and reputations are affected by this false, manipulative information.
Disinformation vs. Misinformation
Disinformation refers to information that is deliberately false or misleading. Such information is spread to sway public opinion, deceive target audiences, or achieve a nefarious objective. The term “disinformation” is the English translation of the Russian word “dezinformatsiya” - a word used to describe manipulative influence campaigns utilized in previous wars and conflicts. Enemy states and terrorist groups have been observed to use disinformation campaigns for malicious and manipulative reasons. Depending on the disinformation campaign’s objective, individuals, governments, and organizations may attempt to incite a destructive response from the audience that’s being targeted by the campaign.
Misinformation refers to information that is unintentionally inaccurate. This includes information that is accidentally reported in error, such as incorrect event details. While misinformation is a mistake in terms of inaccuracy, the negative effects of its spread are still very real. An example of misinformation is when retired US four-star General Barry McCaffrey posted a video clip on social media that he thought was footage of the Ukrainian defense against Russia. Social media users commented on the post that the video was not footage of Ukraine’s defense; instead, it was actually a video clip from a popular video game, ARMA 3. General Barry deleted the social media post; however, the reputation-related impacts of the embarrassing reposting of the misinformation remained.
The key difference between disinformation and misinformation is the intent behind the messaging. Essentially, misinformation is “getting the facts wrong” accidentally, while disinformation is spreading false facts intentionally. Both disinformation and misinformation can negatively affect our communities; however, the intent and driving force differences behind each type of false information are important to note in terms of developing an effective mitigation and response strategy. It’s critical that modern organizations are aware of the many different ways disinformation and misinformation can negatively impact their work.
Social Media’s Role in Spreading Dis/Misinformation
Social media plays a critical role in the rapid spread of disinformation and misinformation across the globe. Within mere seconds, misleading information can “go viral,” sowing discord, creating chaos, and threatening the well-being of people that may act upon this information. Unfortunately, many social media users share dis/misinformation without verifying the information's accuracy or source. All too often, digitally illiterate social media users think that because a social media post has lots of engagement (Likes, comments, shares, etc.), it must be true. In reality, the amount of user engagement on online content is a very poor indicator of whether or not the content is disinformation or misinformation.
Popular social media platforms have incentivized the creation and spread of outrageous content, also known as “clickbait.” Bad actors and enemy states that utilize disinformation to harm society understand the role emotion-invoking, sensationalized content has in the modern world, and they prey upon social media users’ lack of digital media literacy skills to advance nefarious objectives. While the majority of adults are spending copious amounts of time on social media (the average American adult spends over two hours every day on social media platforms), very few understand how social media algorithms work, nor are they aware of the role they play in mitigating vs. spreading dis/misinformation across our communities.
According to Pew Research, over half of American teenagers report being on social media “almost constantly.” Social media’s immense usage in our modern society has resulted in increased dependence on social media platforms for communicating, information sharing, and news consumption. As people spend more and more time on social media, these digital applications’ roles in spreading dis/misinformation become more and more apparent. Social media users may share sensationalized, inaccurate dis/misinformation with their online communities without checking the validity of the information. This type of thoughtless online behavior exacerbates the dis/misinformation problem.
Who is susceptible to disinformation and misinformation?
Anyone and everyone has the potential to be susceptible to the negative effects of dis/misinformation. During times of crisis or emergency, people may let down their guard when it comes to screening outside information. Even if an individual doesn’t use social media, the community-wide impacts of misleading information can disrupt their lives. The COVID-19 pandemic provided ample examples of how the spread of disinformation and misinformation related to public health and safety negatively impacted millions of lives. Many social media users engaged in dangerous and destructive behavior in response to dis/misinformation spread across popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Tik Tok.
No one is inherently immune to disinformation and misinformation. Recent survey results revealed that digital media literacy skills - critical thinking competencies applied to online content - were lacking across all adult generations, even including “digital natives” - Generation Z (Gen Z). While Gen Zers are prolific users of social media, this demographic is very susceptible to falling prey to disinformation campaigns spread on social media. This vulnerability is particularly concerning regarding the U.S. military, where digitally illiterate service members may fall prey to cognitive attacks involving disinformation targeted specifically towards active, former, and retired members of the armed forces. In 2023, the United States Marine Corps released Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 8 which outlined the approach for increasing service member resiliency to information operations, including disinformation-riddled digital influence campaigns.
Dis/Misinformation’s Blast Radius
While our world is hyperconnected through technology, humans remain the “weakest link” from an information security standpoint, and susceptibility to dis/misinformation provides bad actors and enemy states an open door into our communities, organizations, and nation. The high prevalence of disinformation and misinformation online is concerning, along with the high susceptibility to manipulation and influence across our populations. The cyber threats of disinformation and misinformation aren’t just going to go away - public and private sector leaders must take actions to combat the negative effects of this highly disseminated digitally-delivered destruction.
The irresponsible spread of dis/misinformation across popular social media platforms can have extensive negative effects on affiliated organizations’ force, operations, and reputation. Disinformation is intended to destabilize, disorient, and sow discord among groups. Similar to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by terrorist groups, disinformation has a wide and damaging “blast radius” that can negatively impact individuals, communities, and organizations. When dis/misinformation is widely dispersed, people may lose trust in leadership, and the organization’s mission may be undermined. Additionally, long-established organizational reputations may be severely damaged by dis/misinformation.
People are consuming immense amounts of information on social media. The fast pace of our digitally-saturated world encourages reckless online engagement, such as the spread of dis/misinformation by social media users who do not stop checking the validity or origin of such misleading and manipulative content. This social media user behavior pattern leaves many gaps through which bad actors and enemy states can gain access to manipulate and sow discord among groups of people. In some ways, dis/misinformation is like a Trojan Horse 2.0 - slipping beyond our perimeter defenses through the non-violent breach of trusted networks, only to deliver a destructive blow on multiple fronts.
Best Practices for Combatting Dis/Misinformation
The occurrence of disinformation and misinformation will not go away anytime soon. Organizational leaders should recognize the potential effects disinformation and misinformation have on their entity and affiliated communities.
Here are a few best practices for combatting the negative effects of dis/misinformation:
Assess the prevalence and impacts of disinformation and misinformation related to the organization. Evaluate the user-generated social media content for accuracy and track trends and patterns related to spikes in disinformation and misinformation.
Develop and implement a disinformation and misinformation response strategy for organizational use. Don’t stand by while inaccurate, misleading, and potentially dangerous social media content saturates online feeds. Effective mitigation solutions are available to support public sector organizations.
Equip organizational team members to identify disinformation and misinformation through digital media literacy skills training. These 21st-century skills should not be limited to the Information Technology or Public Affairs office. When it comes to combatting dis/misinformation on social media, it’s good practice to engage organizational team members from multiple departments and disciplines.
While disinformation and misinformation are challenges that typically occur on technology platforms, applying a strictly-technical approach to countering this cancerous challenge is short-sighted and limiting. Social media-related dilemmas often span multiple domains - digital and physical; thus, requiring a holistic strategy that incorporates technical understanding with people-focused defenses.
Future Concerns Regarding Dis/Misinformation
Unfortunately, the growing problem of disinformation and misinformation does not appear to be going away. Instead, the potential blast radius of this divisive digital occurrence continues to expand in terms of both reach and long-lasting damage. How will artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) impact the prevalence of dis/misinformation? Will language models like ChatGPT accelerate dis/misinformation spread? How will generational shifts in social media platform popularity impact the reach of dis/misinformation?
The only thing constant about technology is that it’s always changing. Acknowledging the impacts of dis/misinformation is an important first step; however, actions should be taken to curb the destructive spread of dis/misinformation by public organizations. Popular social media platforms on which this type of content is often disseminated have not demonstrated sustainable competency in effective mitigation. As we observed with the horrific violence that occurred in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, social media content can be leveraged to incite deadly outcomes.
Organizations that take a proactive approach to addressing dis/misinformation currently impacting their mission, operations, and teams will be better prepared to effectively combat the adverse effects of inaccurate and weaponized online information on our communities, organizations, and nation.
Dis/Misinformation - Next Steps:
For more information on disinformation and misinformation, please contact Becker Digital. Our team of cyber consultants is available to discuss potential organization-implemented solutions to countering disinformation and misinformation. We have extensive experience deploying effective social media-related strategies for government and nonprofit organizations.
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