The Misinformation-Outrage Cycle
This is Part 6, the conclusion. It’s generally best to follow the advice given to Alice and the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.” But if you must read out of order, here are all the links:
- Part 1: “There are no Yankees here.“
- Part 2: “Creating the Conditions for Mainstream Conspiracy Theories.“
- Part 3: “The Perils of Legal Punditry.”
- Part 4: “Social Media Makes it Worse”
- Part 5: “Get the Fighters Fighting, and Keep Them Fighting”
- Part 6: How to Hold on to Facts.
Part 6: How to Hold on to Facts
Well, Teri? Can democracy work in America?
I don’t know because I don’t know the answer to these three questions:
- Do enough people want democracy with all of its flaws and frustrations?
- Can enough people who want democracy hold on to facts (and reject baseless conspiracies)?
- Will enough people who want democracy do the actual work required of citizens in a democracy?
Maintaining a democracy is never easy. Here are just a few of the perils facing any democracy:
- Democracy always contains the seeds of its own demise. At any time, a majority of voters can elect officials who promise to dismantle democratic institutions.
- Democracy is in constant danger of tipping toward oligarchy if groups within the democracy give in to the temptation to consolidate power and pass laws that benefit themselves. When one group or individual accumulates too much wealth or power, democracy itself is threatened.
- Liberal democracies—defined as rule of law governments in which the majority is held in check by constitutional checks and limitations—guarantee individual freedoms, but unscrupulous people can exploit those freedoms for personal gain.
- Democracy is messy and always uncertain. Spreading around power and creating systems of checks and balances designed to prevent any one person from accumulating too much power naturally leads to gridlock, which can be frustrating and discouraging. Thus the appeal of a demagogue or strongman who promises to cut through the rules and get things done is perennial.
Here’s the thing to remember about democracy in America: We’ve never had a truly representational multicultural and multi-racial democracy. During the past few decades, we have been moving toward one and this has triggered a powerful backlash.
Knowing our history helps put the current era into perspective. The founders started with some pretty good ideas: The idea of a government based on rule of law instead of the whim of a king. The idea of an independent judiciary. A government that represents “we the people.”
The problem was that they left out a lot of people. In fact, they included only white, well-educated, mostly landowning men.
Each time we have taken steps toward a true multi-racial democracy that seeks to include all people, there has been fierce pushback. The Civil War amendments moved us forward. The era of racial segregation moved us backward–but not all the way back to the era of slavery. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, but they remained largely excluded from most of the professions.
Until the 1950s, all of our institutions (governor’s mansions, Congress, industry, universities, major media) were dominated by white men. Because women were dependent on men for their sustenance, men had no trouble “getting” women. Incel wasn’t a thing. Because women and minorities were kept from the professions, white men faced less competition in the job market.
🎶 Those were the days. 🎶
By the 1950s, the work of activists who had been chipping away at the segregation laws for decades paid off: The US Supreme Court, in 1954, held racial segregation unconstitutional, thus kicking off the modern Civil Rights movement, which in turn sparked the women’s rights movement.
The pushback was immediate and fierce. We are still riding the backlash as a small segment of the population tries desperately to hold on to the America of yesterday when white men held dominance. The intensity of the backlash, alone, would be enough to put democracy in danger.
The push toward democracy is helped now by the fact that, since the 1960s, the electorate has become more diverse, which means that the people who want to return to a bygone era are becoming outnumbered. That’s why Republicans are having a harder time winning national elections.
The problem is that democracy requires adherence to facts, and because of the current information disruption, droplets of facts get lost in a firehose of lies, misunderstandings, speculations, and opinions, creating misinformation-outrage cycles, which in turn activates authoritarian impulses in ordinarily pro-democracy people.
So what do we do?
Now I’ll put on my Ann Landers hat and start dispensing advice.
See this list and get busy. There is a lot of work to do. If you don’t have time to volunteer, make sure you vote in every election at every level, and get the people around you to vote. (Once again, in the next election cycle, I will do volunteer legal voter protection work.)
Nobody (except journalists) needs to be on a 24-hour news cycle. If you watch a lot of cable news and find yourself scrolling continually through news social media sites, get away from the Internet and read books that will offer you perspective. (See my book recommendations at the end.)
Stop giving oxygen to the rage merchants. If their audience dried up, they’d have to find a different way to cash in.
Also, stop giving oxygen to the “reflectors” (“experts” who reflect back and confirm your emotions).
One commenter defended someone I was calling a rage merchant by saying, “He exaggerates but he speaks for a lot of people.”
A person who exaggerates but speaks for a lot of people is one step away from an actual demagogue. (A demagogue is a leader who appeals to emotion instead of rational argument and claims to speak for the “people.”) Beware. One of Plato’s concerns about democracy was that people were gullible enough to fall for demagogues. Stay away from experts who “exaggerate.”
Beware of “experts” who continuously trigger your strong emotions, particularly if you think they are “speaking for you.” Realize that they are manipulating you.
Constant rage and anxiety are counterproductive. (1) Anxiety makes us more prone to believing conspiracy theories, and (2) How can people do the work necessary to strengthen a democracy if their hair is on fire? Even in an actual aircraft emergency, a level head can save lives.
Doomscrolling and leaving furious comments is not political activism. Besides, you’ll never be able to compete with all of the bots.
When you consume news, make sure you distinguish facts from opinion and spin. I am strictly a print-media person because it’s easier for me to distinguish facts from opinions while I am reading.
A reader left an interesting comment on Part 3. I’ll break it into parts and respond.
“I agree with all of this, but I think you are stopping short by not discussing who is turning away from social media. God knows I have spent time immersed in the internet and experienced all the negative impacts you cite. But I’ve really soured on it, and I suspect many others have too.”
People get worn out and drop out, but new people are always cycling in, and the large accounts keep growing. While there is always some attrition, the algorithms boost their accounts so that they experience a steady growth in followers even if others tune out. Also, people who leave social media often leave their accounts intact and don’t go through and “unfollow.” This means that large accounts keep growing, which means they face no accountability if they spread misinformation.
The question is: What happens to the people who leave social media because they’ve soured on all the screeching? Do they become apathetic? Or do they find constructive ways to work to strengthen democracy?
The commenter I quoted earlier went on to say:
“New information technology disrupts, but we eventually adjust. I don’t think it’s going to take 150 years this time around. Maybe Musk’s destruction of Twitter was a good thing, it’s hastening the process.”
Initially, I hoped that something better would arise from the crash of Twitter. So far, it hasn’t. Mastodon is closest, but people are flocking to Threads, which is unlikely to solve the underling problems. (For my thoughts on that, see this post. You will find some overlap with ideas in this series.)
I agree that the adjustment will not take 150 years. Part of the information revolution is that things happen faster now. The long-term solution is to educate the next generation. The short-term solution is to educate people now.
Here are a few good books that illustrate how our laws have developed:
Simple Justice by Richard Kluger purports to be a history of Brown v. Board of Education, the case that desegregated schools in America, but in fact, it is a history of the struggle of Black Americans to achieve equal rights. It also provides an excellent account of how our laws can change. A must-read for anyone interested in racial equality and the legal system.
Make No Law by Anthony Lewis offers an in-depth look at New York Times v. Sullivan and a landmark First Amendment case. After you read it, you will cringe when you hear people asking why the liars are not all put in prison.
I’m putting one of mine on here. A history of women’s rights in America, how they evolved, and how the legal system can be used as a vehicle for change.
I am recommending Heather Cox Richardson’s history books because she makes lots of interesting points including this one: We have had two oligarchies: The era of slavery and the era of robber barons. We are now tipping toward a third. This perspective is vital because people tend to think “OMG nothing like this has ever happened before,” which leads to panic and despair. History offers perspective on our current politics and teaches ways forward.
One of the best books for understanding the worldwide rise in right-wing extremism is Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom:
Obviously, there are a lot more, but those should get you started.
Thank you for sticking with me to the end.
And now, I’d better get back to writing the book on the Bill of Rights for ninth graders I have under contract. (For more, click here.) Meanwhile, I promise not to neglect my blog.
All Thanks. Full stop.
Great piece Teri!
Thanks for all this, ma’am.
I recently deactivated my Twitter account due to the constant stream of people swallowing and vomiting forth propaganda and calls for violence without a second thought–many of whom were people I had trusted up until that point. People whose sense of morality seems to equate good and evil with whoever is relatively weaker or stronger in terms of power dynamics. People who were buying into the whole “Our Team Over All” b-s.
And beyond that, people who smugly said that this is all humanity can hope to achieve, and that peace is not an option.
I will not accept that.
Thank you ever so much again for taking the time to do this series. It gives me hope and stops me from disengaging. I agree completely that we all need to do something to help ensure that democracy succeeds. In my personal experience, I became a local poll worker for the last two years. My neighbor just told me she wanted to put her money where her mouth is and she signed up to be a poll worker. Just imagine the impact everyone can have if they do one of the items off your list of to-do’s.
Thankful. Just extremely thankful for all your hard work in putting together this series. It’s something that gives you the chance to see the whole picture from above the fray. So, so very important in my opinion. Like the saying goes, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”
Now to just contemplate and understand all of this information. A sincere thank you!
Nice wrap up on this series. It overlaps a number of other pieces you’ve written in the last couple of years, but it also nicely consolidates the threats we face because of the changes in how we as a society get our information.
I agree with you on preferring print media. I too read my news rather than watch it.
And thank you for the book recommendations. I’ve read a few of them already, and they are important references.
Many thanks for this series. Learned a great deal.
I truly enjoyed reading your series, it gave our family some great discussion. I am now more aware of how we can be manipulated by the media. I have always enjoyed reading history alongside the current affairs of the day because in the end things have been getting better, and folks have always thought this is the end, and it never is. That being said, we are in a time of real inflection and we are witnessing something that is amazing, scary, horrible and truly engaging. Not many people knew that Abraham Lincoln would go down as one of the greatest leaders of all time. The country was at a breaking point! It is fascinating to see Joe Biden and wonder if we are watching a leader who will be remembered 500+ years from now, as a historical figure who shaped world history in wonderfully profound ways.
My daughter is a 3L in Law school and working on first amendment issues; she got so interested in saving democracy because of trump. She and many young people are motivated to save democracy, because they see what is happening in other countries. We just never know what is going to happen but we can’t give up hope. When we have hope we keep working because we know that change is going to come and we will all be better in the long run.
Thank you, Teri. Your clear headed and ration writing is so needed to help us all unplug from the social media addiction and focus on the important facts surrounding us. We have many difficult days ahead.
Thanks for your work Teri. Rage is a horrible filter.
Thank you Teri, as always. I always learn so much and walk away grounded.
My thought on psychopathology-I see pathology and strategy interconnected with the motivating factors bidirectional. Certainly we see this this in Hitler and other historical people. If science drove policy, we would start at the beginning of life and support the development of secure attachment and I think science would demonstrate that we would have fewer Trumps to deal with.
Thank you, Teri. As with all your past work, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series. I came away with better and more nuanced understandings of things I thought I understood well. I routinely share your work with friends and have not in the past experienced the pushback I did with these posts. I’ll keep trying, creating little cracks that will, as Leonard Cohen said, let the light in.
Thank you Teri for your 5 part series. I will share for those who love to learn. Your good clear voice will help others keep to the path our founders and constitution set forth for us to expand and grow the ideals of our form of government. You give us hope and courage to stay the course for American Democracy’s future.
I don’t disagree with you about twitter. On the other hand I probably wouldn’t be reading and following you if not for twitter. I follow 220 there are probably a dozen that I have seprate tabs set up in case I miss seeing their tweets as I scroll through twitter. I am sure some of the accounts I follow are no longer active or haven’t tweeted in a long time. A lot of the people I follow I was well aware of them. But others I found through some one retweeing what some one had to say. I think the the thing to do is probably not to read all the comments. You are always going to see comments of people who have no idea as to what they are talking about. I would say the same thing is true of tick tock. I have found some interesting people to follow. A few lawyers, a guy in the gas and oil busines who actually knows what he is talking about. I follow some you humor tick tocks. One of my favorited is of a rescue dog. He was on the verge of being euthanized. This woman with diabtes trained the dog to detect when her sugar level is low. That she did it on her own is amazing. That is one smart dog.
I like to think that some skills can be taught, for immunizing oneself to the quick-reaction and/or the Rage response to what one sees and hears via media. (Not just Social Media. Not just clearly-biased Media. Not dismissing the pro-Profit motive, as practiced by such outlets as the major networks—ABC; CBS; CNN; MSNBC; NBC—as a “bias,” which of course it is.)
I have somehow, over the last 15 years of the century, post-2008 election, managed to find a personal “off” switch, in regards to knee-jerk reactions to whatever I encounter. Regardless of whether it supports or dismisses my own views.
In my personal circle, I focus on spreading that message: that anything we see or hear now requires that we override the automatic “But that’s outrageous!” switch. Take some breaths. Wait for the verification. Only then is it worth your while, to put the new information into perspective.
(The recent bombing of a hospital in Gaza, initially blamed on Israel, and then re-evaluated for the evidence linking the bombing to a misfiring rocket by a pro-Palestinian group. This reported “evidence” of the nature and source of the damage was then extended, by the point that the evidence itself pointed to a different cause of damage. The whole world has not likely accepted the correction; those of us most-focused on getting our information right Have accepted it.)
I don’t know how to teach this (and looked to the series for an eye toward something that might help). When we ask a great deal, of thought and effort, from those disinclined to enjoy the benefits of such efforts, our results are far from being as great as we’d like.
At least, the thoughtful, in tone, and cogent, in information, that you regularly provide, makes a positive contribution to moving all of us closer to views that can permit Compromise. “Compromise” is the essential ingredient in a working Democracy.
For the Nth time, thank you again for the substantial contributions you make to saving our democracy.
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
I don’t doubt that Twitter did a lot of good. In my comparison of the social media sites, I talk about the good that Twitter has done.
Here, I am talking about the damage.
I figured out how to get reliable information from Twitter (I limit myself to short lists and I remove anyone who starts offering garbage) and I learned about the misinformation from comments I received and questions.
Many thanks for this series. In the UK we have been experiencing many of the same efforts to disrupt our politics and society with misinformation for many years. There has been a great deal of interaction between right wing thinkers/politicians and their counterparts in the USA of that same period that has born poisonous fruit for our representative democracy e.g. leaving the European Union.
In the COVID inquiry that has recently begun with the aim of understanding what we (the UK) did wrong during the pandemic and what we did that was successful, some interesting testimony has been recorded that is relevant to your posts. We heard the term “dead cat” used in official correspondence – I believe that this was a tactic encouraged by Bannon to our Turning Point acolytes in the Conservative Party and it’s particularly pernicious to our Democracy.
A “dead cat” is a fabricated or partially true story that is released to client journalists (journalists kept close by the government with the promise of juicy exclusives in return for favourable coverage) with the aim of deliberately distracting the populace from either more damaging information or even to distract from important votes in the legislature. This was something we always suspected was happening – especially in Boris Johnson’s premiership – and now we have it confirmed in the inquiry.
To relate this to your series of blogs, right-wing activists across the globe favour authoritarianism and because they are willing to subvert democracies to achieve their aims they have an armoury of plays that they can call on at any given time – and as you say in this digital information age they can amplify their voices so much more efficiently.
Finally, thank you for highlighting the impact that 24 hour news channels have had on our lives and the algorithmic hellscape social media has had on families and our democracies. I’ve been off Twitter since Musk got involved but to be honest I wished I had left it long before – having said that I may not have found your voice and that would be too much to bear!
Thank you, Teri. Great series.
“Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.”
It’s not over. (Also, just got back from AU and haven’t started this yet…)
It would be a shame for anyone to miss any of the SIX (not 5) parts of this wonderful series, so perhaps the last part should be renamed “Part 6: Conclusion – How to Hold on to Facts”
Hi Teri – I was pointed in your direction by the late Al Giordano, who I really miss. Thank you so much for everything you do. Really top tier, superb work.
Thanks for telling me that.
I guess I could just leave off “conclusion” and call it Part 6, How to Hold on to Facts. Right?
Agree with everyone above, Terri. A great series. On this conclusion, I want to make a few comments ask some questions of clarification:
1. I completely recognize that we as a nation have been moving toward a truly representational, mult-cultural and multi-racially democracy one and this has triggered a powerful backlash. My question is: Has any democratic nation had such a democracy? I think not. So, along with strengthening our democracy we need to also, as Karen Stenner pointed out in her 2020 essay on authoritarians and their “deep need for oneness and sameness” (https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/11/01/authoritarianism/), provide them the assistance they require to live in peace and comfort with the rest of us.
2. There was reporting today in the New York Times that Trump leads Biden in five out of six swing states (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html). “Black voters are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times . . . Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point . . . (He has a) margin of three points over Mr. Trump on the more amorphous handling of ‘democracy'”. This is insane. These swing state voters do not understand what will happen to their minority rights, their freedom of speech, and holding police accountable for killing unarmed African Americans under a Trump Administration.
Somebody must start getting this across to them. They will determine the outcome.
(3. This is just between us, as I suspect many readers don’t know who Ann Landers is: My aunt created Ann Landers in 1943; she died in 1955.)
Every person I know who reads polls says do not pay one bit of attention to polls a year out. People are not paying attention yet and the polls have been off in every election so far. Remember it was supposed to be a huge red wave in 2022 and it wasn’t?
Yes, I am worried about the election. That’s why I’ll be volunteering as a voter protection lawyer. It’s my small part.
Thanks for this series. But I’m disheartened that the final recommendations are just basically to be a good person in a bad world (e.g. the horrible US health care system vs “Eat right! Keep fit! Get enough sleep! Don’t stress! See your doctor!”). That isn’t bad advice at all, but I don’t think it goes very far against the structural problems.
“When you consume news, make sure you distinguish facts from opinion and spin.” yet how does one know beforehand which is which? It’s utterly impossible to do this for all the issues, since each person is facing the collective might of a cadre of professional paid liars.
I don’t want to be too critical. It’s simply I see these sort of things frequently, but this can lead to lecturing ordinary people on how they are failing their civic duty to be properly informed and engaged. Which I fear just makes things worse.
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.
I’d suggest working through the books I gave you. Start with Simple Justice. Then Free to Be RBG. Then read both of the Heather Cox Richardson books I gave you.
What you need is a better understanding of how citizens can bring about change. After you read those 4 books, come back and re-read your comment. You’ll see your own errors. You’ll also see how “be a good person” is an insult to the men and women who have dedicated their lives to improving yours.
Being a good person is helping elderly women across the street. When I volunteer hundreds of hours each year doing voter protection legal work, I’m not merely being a good person. I’m doing the work that needs to be done because there are dangers from the people who don’t want a democracy.
As far as distinguishing fact from opinion: That’s what people should be learning in high school and college critical thinking classes. One task is to educate the next generation better. To that end, I write books for middle school and high school readers that I hope are engaging.
It has been a long time since I taught college English so I can’t think of any books off hand to help you distinguish fact from opinion. “Trump testified today and said XX” is a fact. “Trump really screwed up during his testimony,” is an opinion.
I have hope! I am going to step into action. Thank you!
What a herculean task you undertook to lay out the history of what’s happening in Democracy today. I really appreciate it, and I have a lot to think about. Nothing is as simple as we think. When we fail to think about solutions in a multifaceted way, the consequences are dire, as when the invasive Cane toad was unwittingly introduced into Australia to control pests in the sugar cane industry.
In resisting the rush to outrage/OMG!, I always go back to the story a few years ago of a tv news story in San Francisco. In July 2013, there had been a crash of an Asiana Air flight at SFO and a noon anchor went on air to report the story right away. She read the “names” of the pilots off the tele-prompter, which were racist and offensive (and fake). Pressure to get the “scoop” first – and not check the facts, ended up with a lot of folks losing their jobs and loss of credibility of the news station. First to report is usually filled with wrong info. They had egg on their faces in a lot of ways.
I’ll take in a headline when an event first occurs (volcano erupts; plane crashes; bomb hits;) but I’m not going to accept any first details. There’s time to parse the details and it takes that time to gather more information. There’s no prize for “knowing all the reported info” right away.
Hi Teri I hope you’re well. I am responding to your mastodon comment.
I’ll Open by saying that, going through your six-part series now even if I don’t comprehend everything it shocks me how MSNBC too, is a rage inducer. The three major news outlets are or at least have a significant amount of rage-inducing partisanship and the distortions about Garland I never realized… I never realized how we are being made it to like authoritarianism and I didn’t even think he was being perceived as weak or feminized. I didn’t even catch it.
I watch or follow a combination of: my local TV news, MSNBC, YouTubers who give the news or debate others heatedly, and acquaintances that I listen to about the current events going on, in Twitter Spaces. I’m trying to use Mastodon, Blue Sky, and other places more, but I do admit that I have a Twitter addiction that I’m trying to cut down on or bisect ha ha all in all I am on my phone about four hours a day as I have it.
I’m glad that I Took my time with your whole series because geez I realize now that a lot of the people that I follow on Twitter or YouTube kind of fit that MSNBC mold they kind of fit the US versus them mentality. Even my political pollster nerd online ‘friends’ whom I stay on the platform for mainly may be rage inducers themselves.
I came to you on Mastodon after I now question myself if I’m using my platform on Twitter wisely or how good the idea of it still is. [ You find people & retweet them and try to see if you can find the right good information and put out bad information in the replies.]
In my own mind, I thought I was doing what you used to do or sometimes still do, putting out fires. I thought I was giving good information, and fighting misinformation but now your response is making me reflect.
I know that I’m not very smart which is why I retweet people I feel are smarter political betters or who are liberal or left that I feel care about democracy are trying to talk about the good things Biden has done for example because I feel like Biden has not gotten enough credit.
I thought I was addressing you calmly if not a little bit sadly. But the response makes me think that I’m projecting some kind of fear-based emotion or to me if I’m open… they still feel a little bit like facts. “We have to do whatever we can with this election to prevent Republicans from coming to Power because they will install a dictatorship that will look similar if not the same as Russia. (probably true ) and once they win we better pack it up because the GOP will rule us for the rest of our lives” (I’m 30 as I write to you, and I no longer believe that one but I used to. The GOP is still a big democracy threat but I don’t know if they’ll rule for the rest of my life )
or the trials don’t matter because people don’t care about the threat of Trump like my Family and real-life friends do. ‘Every day irregular voters care about the economy, and the economy appears to be in the crapper food-wise due to rising food prices, even though it’s actually good, so maybe that one military strategist I follow that says that Trump has a 97% chance of winning because most countries at the state of authoritarianism in their Electorate can’t turn their way around’…. On some bad days. she feels right’
I know it’s not, they both might be partially true but I can’t afford for the whole thing to be true. I don’t wanna give up I don’t want to give up the fight for democracy not just for me not for my niece or nephew I don’t. They need the same rights and privileges I have as a disabled Black person. They deserve a chance for Shawn at least the democracy I grew up with. So I won’t, but man does it make you doubt doubt that just persists
And I just wanna give you one final compliment. The part about keeping them fighting is very very relatable, I connected with it, part of the motivation for ending my Twitter addiction is that I feel despair from seeing the liberals and left split over [recent big foreign policy event] and seeing them fight and dunk on one other when instead of policing each other we should keep the focus on Republicans. People I thought knew better are finally dunking and making fun of young progressives/ event supporters due to how intense and brutal it is right now. I fight the emotion because again I believe what I said above, but it is a fight sometimes. We both need to be united to vote for Dems but that’s neither here nor there.
I apologize for this being too long I hope it’s not too long-winded and I hope you have a nice day and you had a nice Thanksgiving! Thank you very much