About three-quarters of U.S. adults say misinformation increases political extremism and hate crimes, according to findings from a poll by the Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The spread of misinformation in recent decades has coincided with the rise of social media and declines in traditional, oftenThe results of the Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll didn’t surprise Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise, a media literacy initiative launched by the Poynter Institute that works to equip individuals with defenses in the fight against misinformation.
“You have uncertainty, polarization, the decline of local news: it’s a perfect storm that’s created a flood of misinformation,” Mahadevan said. People can teach themselves how to spot misinformation and avoid falling for dubious claims, according to Helen Lee Bouygues, founder and president of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation, which researches and promotes critical thinking in the internet age.She also encouraged people to double-check claims that seem designed to play on emotions like anger or fear, and to think twice about reposting content that relies on loaded language, personal attacks or false comparisons.
Lopez, the survey respondent from Florida, said he has lost friends after pushing back on misinformation they posted online and that new laws are needed to force tech companies to do more to address misinformation. Maybe that will happen, he said, if voters can pierce the fog of misinformation ahead of next month’s election.
“You can always have hope,” Lopez said. “We’ll see what happens after this election. You may want to call me back then.”The poll of 1,003 adults was conducted Sep. 9-12 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.Learn more about the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at www.apnorc.org.
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