During my time in MCO 425 I have been taught many useful tools on how to prevent the spreading of misinformation. However, in order to prevent misinformation, we must first open our minds to the opinions or perspective of others. With Reddit threads like ChangeMyView that we discussed from reading a Wired article, we can do just that. With this tactic, we learn how to understand the minds of others and how they may react when certain things are said to them. For example, if you talk to 50 people on different threads online and begin to see the various ways in which people respond to the opposition of your opinion, then you can begin to carefully learn how to approach corrective conversations.
Once you have learned how to phrase your approach to correcting someone’s spread of misinformation, you should then delve into the topic at hand that they are sharing. Doing research on the topic is extremely vital in correcting someone, you must first be absolutely sure it is either incorrect, fake, or just misleading because it is by a biased author. According to Dallas News, when trying to confirm that it is fake here are some red flags they recommend keeping an eye out for when you are checking a source for false information.
Avoid:
1. Websites ending in “lo”, “.com.co”, or odd domains.
2. Lack of authors or anonymous authors.
3. Improper grammar or poor web design.
4. When the writing infuriates you, there is bias present.
5. Lack of sources within the writing or on the same topic to be found elsewhere.
With all of this in mind, it is time to make an official approach to your friends and family members. One of the most important things I learned from MCO 425 from our lectures is that attacking someone’s knowledge or opinion solves nothing. If you immediately talk down to someone in any way, you have already lost opening their mind or eyes to the misinformation they have spread. It is key to take into consideration any information you know about them already like their religion or political preferences, when discussing that the information they posted was fake, misleading, or just not correct. Being sensitive in this situation will make it easier for you to open up a conversation and present them with any facts you have discovered in regard to their post. If it is incorrect, referencing to multiple sources will aid your discussion. If it is misleading, consider picking specific sentences that contain bias to use as an example when discussing with them. Lastly if it is fake, it can be helpful to search for sources and articles that debunk the misinformation and explain why the false news was created.
Confronting a family member or friend about their spreading of misinformation is never easy. There is no one way to do it, this is simply just my approach with the tools I have been given. With the hopes that the conversation goes well, I would then simply inform them of the learned tools I use in order to prevent the vicious circle of misinformation online from continuing.
