Misinformation Pt 2 - Lying By Design

In this post, I will break down a commonly circulated piece of misinformation, to demonstrate one of the common structures for how misinformation is designed. 

Here's the story –

In one school district in Western Australia (or in Germany, or some other country), the Muslim parents of a small number of children are demanding schools change the lunch menu to offer only halal food. The school district is predominantly white and non-Muslim, but this minority is forcing its religious practices on the entire community. 

Every time this story surfaces, it is very quickly knocked down as being untrue. Usually by the very school district that is named. Many times, there are no Muslims in the school district and there is no lunch program in place! 

Writers from Shakespeare to Hollywood have followed common plot structures. The misinformation industry is no different. Here is how it works – 

• There is a group of bad people, who don't share our values (in this case Muslims)
• They did this bad thing (demanding the school district serve halal food)
• It is infringing on our rights (white, non-Muslim kids being forced to eat halal food)

The Facebook algorithm takes this lie, and with ruthless efficiency serves it up to people who are susceptible to believing it. If you worry that your country or community is changing for the worse due to immigration, or that some groups get unfair special treatment, you are far more likely to be exposed to this information.

Let me give you a more recent example, and I'll let you practice fitting it into the common plot structure. 

The Plunket Society is a charitable trust in New Zealand that provides free health checks for children under five years old, as well as support and advice for their parents. Plunket is a national treasure that has existed for more than 100 years. Plunket recently announced that health checks for children over five years old would only be available for Maori and Pacific Island children. European babies would be ineligible. Plunket is being forced to do this by the Government.

The last three sentences are untrue. I am sure you can figure out who the “bad people” are; what bad thing they did; and whose rights they were infringing on.

There are two prerequisites for this plot structure to succeed. The first, we have already identified – a distribution system that puts the information in front of people who are most likely to believe it or react emotionally to it. In other words, social media. 

The second prerequisite is the creation and demonisation of “the Other”. There needs to be a Them, who are not like Us. Don't look like us, don't eat like us, don't pray like us. And, they are asserting themselves in a way that threatens Us.

My experience is that the more personal interaction you have with people from the Other, the less likely you are to abstract and demonise them. I would wager that most of the people who repost the “Muslims taking over the school menu” story don't actually know any Muslims. And they couldn't give you an accurate definition of what halal is. 

I should acknowledge, there have been real disputes about halal food in schools in Europe. Parents have concerns about animal cruelty in the butchering of animals to meet halal standards. These real-world issues have been debated and addressed locally, no doubt imperfectly.  Sensationalist media coverage and deliberate misinformation only hinder the people who are directly affected.

This all brings us back to the “Questions to ask” from my last post:

1. Who created this lie?
2. What is their motivation for creating the lie?

It is difficult to trace specific misinformation back to its source. But the motivation for creating and distributing lies is clear. It is to magnify and inflame divisions that already exist.  To what end?  I will let you draw your own conclusions on that.

In the next and final instalment of this mini-series, I will explore what we can do to combat misinformation.