Disinformation, international challenges and internal resilience were the main themes discussed during the conference at the Farnesina building in Rome, home of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many were the people and the companies representing Italy. Everyone in the room shared the same desire to defeat the circulation of fake news.
«Now is the time to act» said from the skype meeting Sinan Aral, Professor of management, marketing and data science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. «When I began studying misinformation people came up to me saying… “oh this is not important”, but now they all understand the severe impact that disinformation has on the world»
During the conference, Professor Aral explained the three essential elements of disinformation:
- First, people have to understand that the problem is not related to just information spreading online, but it’s socio-economic structures that spread falsity as well.
- Second, people have to deal with the incentives that create fake news and the profit companies get from them.
- Third, in order to defeat mis-information it would be a good start to label information. «When you go to the grocery store food is labeled with calories and ingredients. We have no labels when we speak about information that we consume. There should be an editorial policy, a fact checker who can give reliability to the content». Before closing the meeting, the professor made one last question: «Why do fake news spread so fast?» And then he answered: «Human attention is drawn to novelty, things that are surprising and shocking for the reader. The more surprising the content, the more it becomes spreadable»
Incredibly important was the presence of the Italian Digital Media Observatory, represented by its president Gianni Riotta and researcher Elena Musi. Their objective is to bring together fact checkers, social media experts and data analysts in order to prevent the circulation of unreliable content. Professor Musi distinguishes between Misinformation, news that have wrong details but no intention of creating damage to other people, and Disinformation which instead is created specifically to damage and harm others. There are several techniques used to prevent the spread of fake news, such as de-bunking, always double check after reading, or pre-bunking, always double check before reading. IDMO, said Gianni Riotta, «is one of the first national hub observatories created and connected to the European Digital Media Observatory. Not all countries have a hub yet». If everyone stands together, then there will be a possibility to change.
«The phenomenon of disinformation is taking on worrying characteristics» said Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio. «During the global chaos of the pandemic, fake news caused fear and disorientation and unreliable contents reached giant numbers and» he added, «human rights have to exist both online and offline». Very worried, he specified that there must be a commitment by everyone towards fighting disinformation: «People have to prefer transparency, quality and good information of the content».
Receiving reliable news is a component of the freedom of expression.
The meeting was reaching its end when Gianni Riotta quoted Maria Ressa, Nobel Price for peace 2021: «it is true that there are rivers of disinformation, but I can’t abandon the internet because it is the only way that I have to reach my community».
Websites should acknowledge the increasing problems. There has to be more critical thinking. Everyone should be together for a better internet.
Further Reading: Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo turn your account from poor to cool
