Swimming in a Sea of Misinformation: It’s MisinfoDay

In the age of digital rumors, misinformation, and disinformation, the words Graham Nash wrote in 1968 still ring true: “Teach your children well” so that they can navigate this new information environment “because the past is just a goodbye.”

On March 17, about 500 high school students gathered at the University of Washington for MisinfoDay – a media literacy event focused on how to navigate complex information and make informed decisions about what to believe online. In 2019, Liz Crouse organized the first MisinfoDay for about 300 students from four Seattle area high schools. Students, teachers, and librarians from across the state now attend the annual event.

Crouse, who is the education and engagement manager for the Center for an Informed Public (CIP), said: “The students want to have fun, and we want them to learn. They are not going to learn everything they need to know in one day. When they leave, we want students to be more open to what their teachers bring up in class. And we want the teachers who are here to feel more confident in teaching about misinformation.”

Shawn Lee, a teacher at Ballard High School participated in the first MisinfoDay and has returned every year. He is now a CIP Community Fellow. “I was really wowed by the event,” Lee said. He modified the MisinfoDay curriculum for his students and trained them to be trainers.

First, seniors offered media literacy training for underclassmen and then he and his students created a media mentorship program at Ballard High in which the students trained their parents, grandparents, and neighbors about how to be more informed users of digital media. In return, adults taught students non-digital life skills such as how to sew on a button or tie a necktie. Lee plans to repeat the community event in Ballard in June.

“We are all kind of swimming in a sea of information and misinformation. Learning how to navigate that is really important work,” Lee said. Students may have been born digital, but they need to learn to be critical consumers of digital media. Their elders are digital immigrants who need to learn a new language.

Crouse also developed an online Youth Advisory Board that contributes to ongoing growth of the program. The group meets virtually throughout the year, provides feedback on proposed programing, and supplies some of the content for the annual on-campus event.

Lucy and Henry (both are under the age of 18 so only first names are used) were students in Lee’s class in their first year of high school. They are now seniors and members of the Youth Advisory Board. They are both interested in careers in STEM fields. They presented an interactive display about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence.

Jevin West, CIP co-founder and information science professor at UW, opened the program by telling students their “superpower is the ability to discern what is true.” He identified three kinds of information that should be on their radar. First, that which is patently false. Second, misleading information that mixes truth with lies. Third, “slop which is created by AI, but looks real and that people comment on as if it were real.”

West said that his team had been instrumental in getting Google to add three vertical dots to the right of each search result. Clicking on those dots provides more information about the source – including whether it is known to have been generated by an AI agent or a marketer.

Multiple events and workshops gave students the opportunity to hone their skills in identifying false, misleading, and slop information. All students participated in an Escape Room activity. They worked in teams to SIFT (Stop, Investigate, Find better coverage, and Trace claims) through sources to discern the truth about a public policy proposal. They had to navigate manipulated charts, bot accounts, and deep fakes in the quest to decide what to recommend.

They also selected one of six smaller sessions based on their interest. Kate Starbird, co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public and UW professor in Human Centered Design and Engineering, led a session that explored why people faced with the same facts can come to different conclusions about those facts.

Starbird defined facts as “little pieces of information about the world.” But noted that “those facts can be manipulated and understood differently based on frames that shape how we select evidence.”

Students were given the same set of facts about unidentified flying objects. Small groups were assigned one of three frames for exploring the facts: Aliens, Secret Military Program, or Natural Phenomenon. Each group selected the facts that fit best with their frame and then discussed their frames with others who had been assigned different frames. They also considered counter evidence provided by other teams and ways that they could reconcile those facts with their assigned frame.

“Disinformation campaigns often work by manipulating the frames,” Starbird said. “They amplify certain evidence while ignoring other evidence.” She encouraged students to look for “frame pushing” and then learn how to put on different frames. “Check emotional triggers to see if you are being manipulated. If you feel emotionally activated by information, it may be time to check your frames.”

In the words of Graham Nash, “And you, of tender years, can’t know the fears that your elders grew by, and so please help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die.”

MisinfoDay was co-sponsored by the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington and the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Financial support was provided by the The John S. and James L Knight Foundation, the William + Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Microsoft.