Like everyone, members of the ILG committee were upset and shocked by the recent riots across UK towns and the rise of the far right and racist organisations which play into people’s fears and worries about issues in Britain. It was heartening to see Louis Coiffait-Gunn CILIP CEO’s statement about the damage done to Spellow Hub library in Liverpool. But one particular concern we noticed was an increasing reference in the mainstream media to mis and disinformation’s role in fuelling people’s prejudices and anti-social behaviour. Misinformation is a complex and critical topic, so much so that new MPs were provided with a short explainer from the House of Commons Library as part of their induction material.
Conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation are not new phenomena. What makes them prevalent in our society is that they circulate widely on social media. While sometimes sharing inaccurate information is unintentional, a small number of people (known as bad actors) deliberately intend to mislead people and perpetuate the spread of misinformation. Indeed, in his presentation at LILAC 2023, Michael Flierl pointed out misinformation spreads much more quickly on social media than the truth. Citing an article by Meserole from 2018 on the spread of misinformation on Twitter, Flierl argued bad news has and always will sell!
Michael then asked what we should do about this as an information profession and discussed four possible solutions:
- Development/advocacy of new technology
- Educational efforts
- Building cultural awareness of information warfare/surveillance capitalism
- Local, regional, national and international policies
This led to the conclusion that there is no magic bullet. What we are likely to need is a combination of all four of the above approaches.
In the UK, the Online Safety Act 2023 attempts to combine these solutions. The Act aims to regulate social media platforms but has also been criticised for its potential impact on digital privacy and its detrimental effect on public-interest digital projects that use community moderation, such as Wikipedia. So while legislation may form part of the approach, it is unlikely that any single policy intervention will be able to tackle the disinformation problem while still protecting civil liberty.
The Act also gives Ofcom responsibility for media literacy for adults and young people.
It has published and consulted upon the draft of a three-year media literacy strategy, to be finalised by the end of the year, but in February 2024 the Public Accounts Committee reported that while expectations are high, it may take years to have an effect. They stated:
The regulator Ofcom has made a good start in preparing for its new role protecting citizens from online harm – but questions remain over how it will manage public expectations for what the regulatory regime will achieve, with the regulator unable to act on individual complaints and overseas providers in particular posing a significant challenge.
Whilst it remains to be seen whether a national media and information literacy training programme will solely help inoculate people against misinformation, there is plenty for us librarians and educators to do to help people make sense of the stories they read online and work out who to trust.
At ILG, we will actively contribute to the work of the Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA), a new charity and a cross-sector initiative bringing together organisations and individuals sharing a common belief in the power of media and information literacy to help people lead happier, healthier, safer and more productive lives.
During the pandemic, ILG signposted helpful websites and resources to ‘fact check’ ideas creating a set of resources. We believe, as information professionals we need to develop our understanding of information and media literacy, so we can advise our communities. You have to put on your own oxygen mask, before you try and help others!
We have now produced a new page with links and tools on misinformation and disinformation.
We’re aware we probably have more questions than answers at this stage, but we in the ILG feel this is an important moment to examine our role in supporting information literacy. We hope to work more on this area in the coming months, including an online event on misinformation and information literacy in the autumn. We would love to hear from our members and supporters on this – what would you like to see from ILG on this topic?
As passionate advocates for greater levels of information literacy across all of society, we know there is more than can be done.