The Target Is Trust | Jennifer Irish

In June 2024, a major water main ruptured in Calgary, and some residents refused to believe it was happening. Jennifer Irish, a principal at Pendulum Geopolitical Advisory, founding director of the University of Ottawa's Information Integrity Lab, and a former Canadian diplomat and national security executive, points to it as a sign of something larger. When people can no longer tell what is fact from what is not, she argues, they lose the ability to make informed decisions about their communities, their democracy, and their own health.

The conversation covers what Irish calls an age of industrialized amplification and distortion of narratives, in which hostile state actors work to sow discord and erode public trust. That erosion is the real damage. These campaigns take hold because of a distrust in government that already exists, and rather than merely exploit it, they deepen it, to the point that a public inquiry has named disinformation an existential threat to democracy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Welcome to Mythinform Science, a podcast about misinformation, disinformation, and the science of what to do about it. Conversations with experts in the study of misinformation. Justin, I I think a lot of people understand that misinformation can come in many forms. I mean, obviously it can be about different content areas like health misinformation or climate or political misinformation.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Yeah, and I guess there's there's different terms that are flying around around this. Whereas disinformation is a bit more intentional, is false or misleading information that's produced because the point is to try to deceive. No, sometimes that distinction is a distinction with another difference, but I think it's important to think through that the intention piece where we can figure that out. And then there's that kind of third piece around malinformation, um, which is c sometimes seen as where true information is spread in a way that's intended to just sow general discord in in society or in particular groups. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Yeah, that that that little bit of nugget of truth to spread a larger, a larger lie. Yeah. I mean, we have propaganda is another, right? Usually that's sort of framed in the context of governments, but maybe has a little bit more of a persuasion or attitude aspect behind it. As health scientists, I think we tend not to worry too much about these different flavors because we usually don't know the intent of the producer of the piece of information. We're more interested in just trying to make sure that people are making decisions based on good quality information, regardless of where the bad information comes from.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, exactly. And I guess when we're thinking about the online environments, especially where so much misinformation is spread, it can be so many different producers spreading it regardless of where it originated. You know, misinformation might be shared and further spread by people who really end up believing it. And then people spread it because they just other people just might just find it interesting, entertaining to share, or other people who know it's false, but spread it anyway because they have another motive there. There might be some money to make off of spreading it potentially. So it just seems like the intent of the producer of misinformation may or may not matter as much when really what we're trying to do is to help people make good health decisions.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah, but in some cases and other kinds of misinformation, uh the producers aren't just individuals trying to make a buck or or uh trying to share because they think something's interesting, but they can be companies, they can be industries, they can be nation states. I mean, it makes my head swim. I you know, I'm a cognitive psychologist and I try to understand what happens within individuals making choices and decisions, the idea of framing things in terms of what governments do, and it just makes my head head explode.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Aaron Ross Powell I mean, you do yourself a disservice, Jamie. I think you bring a lot to the table in terms of your expertise. And I mean that's that's for my money why we're we're doing this podcast is to bring other perspectives, other expertise to bear so that we can have conversations that help us to think through and hopefully help other people to think through some of these broader these broader issues. You know, and there are people out there that think about these issues on, you know, massive scale, much broader scale, thinking about how misinformation and disinformation and propaganda are produced by organizations and in some cases even countries. Um and we want to talk to those people and learn about how they deal with these challenges uh on a on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Yeah, and today we're gonna have such a person. Today our guest is Jennifer Irish. Jennifer is uh currently a principal with Pendulum Geopolitical Advisory, where she is lead of information integrity practice. She was the founding director of the information integrity lab at the University of Ottawa and leads its Executive Security and Intelligence Leadership Program. Prior to that, she was a Canadian diplomat and a senior national security executive. She has a wide range of experience and are really happy to have her here to talk about it. Jennifer Irish, welcome. Thank you for having me. Really glad to have you here. Um, you've got uh a really wide range of experience relevant to the uh things we're talking about uh in this podcast. Really looking forward to talking to you about this sort of some of the challenges governments face on the international stage, maybe with respect to disinformation. But maybe to start out, we could just tell us why do you think misinformation and disinformation has reached such a f pitch lately? Why are people more aware of it? Why does it seem to be at the forefront of public consciousness now? Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Well, I think that it's an issue that should be on the consciousness of the public uh more than it is. Sometimes I regard it as an invisible threat, but I think people are are understanding that this is something that they need to understand and it is influencing decision making. Certainly when you look at different threat indices around the world. For example, the annual report of the World Economic Forum ranks uh mis and disinformation. Now, last year was number two, this year it's number one. It's only number one because geoeconomic economics uh has has um has over overtaken it, like in in the light of the current international uh climate. The UN also regards it not as a threat because it actually exists, it's actually happening now, but as a threat multiplier uh with the ability to amplify or complicate other crises, whether that be about emergency preparedness or governance or other issues requiring a collective response. When we look at uh why mis and disinformation are resonating with the public, I think there's three categories of factors. Uh, one are psychologically related. Um, so there is a human preference for emotional content. There is uh a natural inclination to believe visual evidence uh over narrative evidence. Uh there's also uh a tendency to believe false information if it's if it's repeated. There's uh most importantly, there's something called confirmation bias where we tend to seek information that already confirms our pre-existing uh beliefs. And people like shortcuts, like like simple explanations, even if for very complex issues. The second set of issues I would say are sociological, and uh that includes polarization, uh a decrease in trust that has been exacerbated uh since COVID. And I think I'll be coming back to that issue of trust several times during this podcast. Echo chambers, so those exist also uh within our our communities, but also online. And it's those online factors or the technological that I'll end this segment on. But um, you know, algorithms, you know, tend to uh reinforce or or provide us with news that uh is already understood to align with our preferences. So that's how confirmation bias works technologically, platform architecture. Um there's also um the increasing use of trolls and bots to to amplify information that comes to us. And finally, there's a series of economics incentives. There are an increasing number of opportunistic players and uh and influencers. And we see that in uh that these factors become important when we look at how people are getting their news. An increasing number of people are getting their news from social media, um, and that is especially amongst uh Gen Z or younger people. And when we look at something like uh like TikTok, the St. George's University recently did a survey of TikTok and medical uh information and found out that 81% of the videos on TikTok about cancer cures uh were were demonstratedly false. So there's definitely issues out there, and in the health sphere, it obviously can cause uh not only harm, but can cost lives.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Yeah, uh really interesting. And uh, like you say, the sort of three categories, they really interact and can um promote each other. You you know, we've had people who have been profit motive to sell snake oil for centuries, but this is the social media and the online aspects have really sort of multiplied the risk and multiplied the number of people they can reach out to and all of those kinds of things, haven't they?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I I would say there's one other um issue that appreciate your view on Jamie as you're in the in in the field. And that's is I I think there's also a link to the healthcare system, you know, the number of Canadians who don't have access to a family doctor or the increased pressures on family doctors to respond to to people's personal stories. And people like that connection. And I think part of the phenomenon is about people finding uh a social connection or a relation to personal stories through influencers online or through community groups when they should be finding that through their family physicians. And I don't mean at all to diss family physicians. I think it's a broader public policy issue. Uh, but I I would think that by the time someone goes into a doctor's office, they've already done quite a bit of research online, some of that research being verifiable and authoritative depending on the site they've chosen, some not. So I wonder how much time also doctors are spending having to unwind or having to demystify some of the information that a patient may come in that's already kind of resonating with their confirmation bias.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Yeah. We've certainly uh talked a little bit about that. One of the one thing it makes me think of is the we need to get better as public health actors in developing narratives that connect with people. It's clear that uh sort of misinformation producers are very good at developing narratives that r resonate with people. I think we as public health actors probably tend towards the you know, the sharing of the information without necessarily the narrative component.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

There is a saying, if I may, that um, you know, the facts speak for themselves. Uh, but actually that's not true. Uh you know, scientists, others, they have to speak for the facts, and they have to speak for the facts in a way that resonates with the listener. And so you so you're right that the facts have to be presented in a narrative that's compelling and interesting for it to resonate properly. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

I thought might maybe we we could pivot to leveraging some of your experience and expertise on the geopolitical stages. Um let's talk about producers, producers of mis and disinformation. And you know, Jamie and I teach a course on persuasion and health behaviors generally, and we sort of we we bring this up that there are there are state actors that are interested in and promoting mis, dis- and ma malinformation. But from your vantage point, um, these days especially, are uh who are the main sort of producers at the moment um spreading this kind of information?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Well, it it it depends if you're talking about health misinformation in particular or or misinformation more generally. And maybe I'll I'll stick to the latter because it's more in in my lane. But in terms of the perpetrators of misinformation, they can be uh sometimes economic actors, like those who are responding to in incentives. Cyber criminals are definitely part of that. There's a series of opportunistic players. We've talked about influencers who uh and I would say uh just as a side point on influencers, that they are as equally opaque as algorithms. You know, we talk about algorithms a lot, and uh algorithms don't aren't the creators of mis and disinformation, but the amplifiers of that, and they're opaque. Increasingly, it's getting more and more difficult to understand how those algorithms work. It's a black box. Well, equally, who is behind the influencers? And that's uh that's also a question that needs to be answered before you know one puts their trust um in influencers. But you did raise um state actors, and the most uh prevalent state actors in um mis and disinformation, or I would say disinformation in Canada is um are Russia and China. So they're the most prevalent. Of the two, I think we've seen quite a bit of influence from Russia that's not necessarily generating mis and disinformation, but amplifying it with a view to sowing discord. So there's definitely been um some studies from this, longitudinal studies from the COVID period that showed that both China and Russia were amplifying false narratives, not so much because they had a particular issue, although China did around the origins of COVID, you know, it did have an influence agenda. But the secondary agenda was to find wedge issues to increase polarizations in our society uh or wedge issues. And uh this is something that is is being perpetrated by hostile state actors to undermine our democracies or to undermine our alliances. Um we're definitely seeing that. So they are not necessarily the originators of the information, uh, but they are amplifying or distorting them in a way to cause harm and at a huge scale. Like we talked about the effect of AI a little bit and how that accelerates narratives through algorithms. Well, uh Russia and China both have these huge ecosystems uh that involve also their intelligence uh services, and they also use trolls and blot bots, which are pretty cheap to get and uh provides a huge leveraging. You know, I mean, now trolls and bots are s are so capable that they can uh even distort the information that that is included in searches, whether that including from AI. So we call that AI contamination. So this is happening now on an industrial scale. When we used to talk about mis and disinformation, we used to focus on the narrative, what elements are false, what are not false. And but now I think we're in an age of real, really um industrialized, industrialized amplification and distortion of narratives. And hostile state actors that you have mentioned, uh Justin, are very much part of that equation.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

You touched on the motives a little bit, um sort of sewing discord. Is it do you feel like it's primarily that and there aren't often, or at least sometimes can there be shorter term goals for those state actors? Does it increase around elections or or those kinds of things, or is it just sheer constant stream of stuff that's meant to sow discord? Is is Discord the primary outcome that they're looking for?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Well, I I I would say I think you've kind of answered uh your own question there. I think in the longer term, it's about sowing uh discord and amplifying trust, in our case, trust of Canadians in their institutions, in the in in their governments, even in the scientific method, frankly. So so I think that's that's the the the medium to longer term objective. In the shorter term, yes, there are peaks in the prevalence of mis and disinformation around events, including around uh elections. We recently had an inquiry, the the public inquiry on foreign influence that showed the impact of Chinese influence in Canadian elections. Alongside Justice Hogue, the head of that commission, identified disinformation as a key existential threat to democracy. And I think you that's where you can draw a distinction between democratic processes and democratic discourse. Um, because I think what China exercised during the 2019 and 2021 elections was interference in electoral processes. But but that influ that targeting of our democratic discourse through amplifying polarization, uh, through those wedge issues that we've talked about are part of that longer-term agenda to undermine our democracies.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Aaron Ross Powell We think about the sort of time-limited influence around elections, but just in hearing you describe that that the ramifications of what happens during election times can have that maybe a longer discord effect than just the I mean it it is still clearly negative to be influenced- trying to influence elections, but until you had said that, I think I hadn't really conceptualized that it that impact is not time-limited to the election period. You talked a little bit about trust as one of the key three factors at the start um in the thinking about missed disinformation. And I wondered how how do Canadian government agencies how do they go about preserving public trust? How do you do that in the face of this onslaught of disinformation actors, whether they be influencers or um state actors or both?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Well, trust is really key. Uh and I wish the agenda were about preserving trust. I I think we also just need to recapture the public's trust, uh, which has been on a slight decline since the COVID period. Uh so I think it is definitely an issue of concern to those in public policy, including that the the Canadian government. Part of it is making sure that the public understands the rationale behind um decisions, why government uh exists, like going back to really fundamental points. I always find um examples can be useful in kind of discussing some of these trends. And one example that comes to mind, uh, it's kind of related to to health, but it's really uh related to the issue around trust. And that was the recent uh decision around ostrich culling in in in BC. So just for those who who might not be familiar, so there was a federal animal health decision to cull ostriches following evidence that the ostriches were carrying avian flu. And so on on the surface of it, as as you know, you you are are are scientists, using a precautionary principle, it seemed like quite a reasonable decision that these ostriches were carrying avian flu. Uh, they were in an area where there's migratory birds, and so there was a calculated risk that avian flu could be transmitted to migratory birds and amplify, you know, the potential for disease. And I won't speak to the science, because I'm not a scientist, so what I'm speaking to the narrative. And so narratives started emerging, reframe framing the incident as evidence of government overreach and regulatory abuse. So this resonated with um elements in society, including in the US, amplified in in Canada, that already had a distrust of authority and kind of an anti-government in general orientation. And you know, that that issue ended up spinning out of control. It ended up having to be resolved through the court system alongside the scientists who were speaking to the science around the decision were also personally targeted. Uh so it was also, you know, something that that was causing a public safety question around those who are implicated into the decision. And so I I mean this this uh shows how even localized regulatory actions can rapidly become symbolic narratives about government l legitimacy, particularly when amplified through transnational dialogue. But it's but that that it takes hold because of the exist uh of the pre existing uh distrust in in in government. And And these kinds of narratives can actually exacerbate that existing kind of foundation of distrust.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

That sort of issue might well start as relatively lit legitimate concern about the about the decision making. Was it appropriate? Was it considered? And what was the process that led up to a what m to some people must seem like an extreme uh an extreme action? But it's the amplification, it's the ability of things to get picked up via social media, to cross boundaries, to cross borders, where it becomes a much bigger problem than just a local, uh a local one, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Well, you raise a good point there, Jamie, because I think it's it's not just about debate around the facts. That's something we should welcome. Like we are a democracy. It's important that we have we invite different opinions around the same fact base. So if this was just a narrative about the pros and cons of the scientific case as it was presented, uh, we wouldn't be having this conversation about how, you know, it became a distorted misin and disinformation. But the narrative itself became distorted and presented through a particular lens, through a particular agenda of those who were trying to capitalize on distrust around the government. And so that puts us in the category of a distorted narrative that goes well beyond like freedom of expression or you know, an honest discussion of facts. You know, we've talked a lot about uh you know mis and disinformation directed at our democracy, but it's as equally as troubling when that is targeting scientists or increasingly even the scientific method that we use to develop informed uh scientifically based opinions on facts. Um because if we if we lose that as an understood credible basis for forming you know public policies around issues, then we've that we've lost a key tool that we need to have an informed evidence-based approaches to uh the problems of our times.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

I wanna I want to come back to that for sure, but I I don't want to leave the ostriches yet for for a second. Just the fact that it it did blow up, that particular issue did blow up and became uh a bigger than a local issue, had to be solved through the courts. Do you look at that as a as a failure or a success in that there are proper mechanisms to resolve things that get big for by whatever mechanism? What do you see as the main tools to fight against this sort of misinformation generation amplification? And yeah, was that a success or was it a failure, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Well, I I I think it's a case that underlying kind of both. So so, yes, in terms of the specifics of the resolution, you know, the the courts came in and were able to, you know, form form an opinion based on the scientific evidence put forward that it was a legitimate decision. So in that narrow sense, uh yes, it was resolved, and we're lucky in Canada to have a court system uh that that looks at issues you know dispassionately through through the evidence. I think it was also a failure, though, a failure in terms of uh now it's it's also created doubts around these kinds of decisions. Arguably, perhaps it's also increased um distrust uh around uh government uh decision making, because I'm not sure that people would necessarily use the court decision as their litmus test of arbitrating whether this issue was well handled or or not. And certainly there's ways in which the government could have handled it better as well as it went along. So so in that sense, I think it's more like a a troubling case study. But uh but you are right in that uh it's it it is uh helpful when we have the court to provide levers. And generally in miss and disinformation, we don't. In this particular case, because it was based on a government decision, it had a track. But in in general, we don't have the kinds of legal levers that we need to properly take on these issues, particularly with respect to the technological platforms, uh, which are in you know increasingly becoming part of the problem. And I don't even need to raise kind of recent examples around that, including you know, Grok's use of child pornography tools, you know, gender disinformation that is um you know being increasingly used against women as as um part of um sex torsion in some cases. Uh so so tech platforms are increasingly uh part of the problem, and we have fewer and fewer leave levers uh for um addressing that. If I may, I'll also uh just come in here with an example of where Canada tried to use a public policy avenue for addressing issues with a tech platform, and that had to do with the digital um uh news tax. So Canada did try at one point to, and and it still exists on on uh in the books, uh, did uh invoke a levy on uh tech platforms who were using Canadian news without compensating Canadian news providers. And uh it was enlightened policy, I think, because it was you know using that levy not for the government coffers, but investing it back into local journalism. We've talked about you know the need for robust avenues for news as part of that you know sociological vulnerability we have. But Meta uh decided it was not going to pay a levy under any circumstances to the Canadian uh government and so consequently stopped carrying Canadian news on either Instagram, on Facebook, and so Canadians who are increasingly using these uh social media channels are not even uh getting the Canadian news content or perspective behind it. And so that is uh that is also a case where you know we have to be more assertive, I think, in in coming up with public policy responses, which include legislation, so that ultimately we can use the court system and regulation as a way of combating these especially industrialized information distortion campaigns.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Yeah, I mean it it's an interesting example of how that can sort of pretty directly relate to misinformation getting out of hand and and causing the problems you mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

There's another example I could bring uh to bear, and that had to deal with um with uh an incident in Calgary. So there's a recent, you know, water main burst in in Calgary, but there had been one previously, 18 months uh prior in 2024. And I think this is a good case study for looking at precisely issues you raised around local responses, because in this case, there was a catastrophic rupture of a major water main. It was this was in June 2024, uh, but misleading and speculative information started spreading online. Again, this was amplified by uh those who had an agenda. In this particular agenda, they were trying to draw a correlation between the water main burst and the federal government's climate change uh policies, trying to distort the narrative, saying that um the water main rupture wasn't even happening, but it was it was an instrument that those who were supportive of climate change policies were trying to put into place to again to overreach kind of the government authority in this area. And uh so so they linked it to climate and infrastructure policy debates, amplifying distrust and complicating efforts to actually combat the emergency. And uh the the local government had to invest quite a bit of effort in just proving it to Calgarians that this was true. I mean, they had to go to the lengths of putting a 24-7 camera on top of the water main so people could actually see it. And and uh in talking to those uh you know in in the city of Calgary and their their really tremendous efforts in trying to combat disinformation in the context of a crisis. Uh on the one hand, you could see how this is a a distraction from dealing with the emergency, but they were quite right in in having to just establish first what are the facts and and and trying to develop that public trust around those facts before they were able to persuade the public that you know they needed to cut their water consumption by 25%. And this is increasing the reality, and and it's complicated, uh Jamie, by precise those issues you raise, as as local journalism becomes uh scarcer and scarcer or under more pressure, people will need to have uh sources, credible sources of information so they understand what's even happening in their communities. And that's definitely part of the longer term response we have to take in this age of disinformation is investing in ways of increasing public trust, but also ways that people can uh be informed, you know, using trustworthy sources.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

Yeah, amazing uh response by uh the the Calgary public actors to realize that there is a pretty direct relationship between their problem and the misinformation that is, if people don't believe there's a water main break, then they're just gonna not reduce their their uh water usage and things are gonna get worse quickly. I wonder if I can run touch back on the you mentioned the danger uh around trust in science. This is a this is certainly something that uh we think about as scientists. I think it's interesting that people in the public sphere like yourself, that it seems to be discussed a lot. Uh I'm just wondering, what do you see as the longer-term risks? What are what are the things that keep you up at night? What are the things that we really want to avoid?

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Well, the whole agenda keeps me up at night, to be honest. Uh but I think the you know the the longer-term consequences, and I think we're starting to just face this now, uh, is confusion. If people are confused about what is fact, what is not fact, then they're unable to take informed decisions about their communities, our democracy, about personal health decisions. All of this becomes complicated uh just as people try to sort through what is true and evidence-based and what is manipulated information. So I think part of that is, you know, we we need to get better about debunking or even doing counter-narratives around information disinformation as it as it emerges, but it's coming at us so quickly. And especially AI-generated visuals are getting so good that it's becoming increasingly difficult to debunk uh narratives as they come up. And often there's sophisticated narratives that include you know elements of truth, elements of manipulation, and people can get confused as you know, scientists or or others try to come and say, well, this part is true, this part's not true. That can also generate um con confusion. So I think we have to get better at anticipating what narratives are coming our way and getting ahead of them. So that's also called in our business, that's called pre-bunking. So so you try to anticipate narratives and then you you try to make sure that that people are already informed that they already have, you know, the proper, you know, digital literacy, critical thinking capacities to be able to make sense of those narratives and understand the basis, the scientific or or the evidence basis uh behind issues before those who are trying to manipulate the space even come through. But so what I what I fear is these issues are accelerating at such a rate and technology is adding to the sophistication of the presentation of these narratives that's going to be increasingly difficult to counter them in a way to make sure that people have the information they need to make informed decisions about themselves and their communities.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Yeah, yeah, interesting. I mean it's one of the one of the themes that we've had in some of our other discussion is just how speed of response is often a really important part. That if we can if you can nip it in the bud, if you can uh counteract the misinformation early on in the process, it may be more effective than it if you're playing catch up. And what you're saying is that that's going to be increasingly difficult, and we need to start working on these sort of anticipating and developing skills amongst people and and you know, all those things that you can do beforehand to try to counteract it prior to these things getting out of control. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

And sometimes that means going right back to basics. Uh, do people, you know, maybe it needs to be reaffirmed uh with our our citizens why we use a scientific method to make uh health decisions. What is the what what is the process that is gone through uh before decisions are made about uh about health and science? So that when disinformation comes up that that counters that or challenges uh the the process by which decisions are reached, or when opinions are not backed by the scientific method, people are already educated in terms of what they should have expected to have information that is actionable for them in terms of having that fact base uh that they need to inform their decisions.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

I mean, this is amazing, Jennifer. And uh it's been so helpful and and really truly interesting to get your perspective, um wide-ranging perspective and expertise, not just in the kind of sobering challenges that that we're facing, but uh some of the strategies that uh that we need to be thinking about to address some of them. And it really leaves me feeling grateful that we have people like you in Canada to help us think these issues through at these multiple levels. Um but before we go, is there is there a paper or you know a resource that you think people interested in in the perspectives that you've brought to bear today um should read? You know, it doesn't have to be something necessarily that you've written yourself, but is there a go-to that you'd recommend people um uh read to to follow up on some of the ideas that you shared with us?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

It would be hard for me to identify a single uh paper, but there are uh resources available, uh, including the communications security establishment uh has some indicators for what people should be looking at, you know, what what lens they should be looking at, um trying to discern whether something is disinformation or not. Like, for example, if it has emotional content, or you know, it has a series of different uh different indicators. Uh so that certainly um is is a resource that is useful.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Yeah, fantastic. So listen, Jennifer Irish, thank you very much. It's been uh a real pleasure talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Well, thank you. And and just so appreciative of your efforts through this podcast and other avenues to draw increased public awareness of the importance of health mis and disinformation, what's behind it, and what we can do about it.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Brilliant. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

I think. Yeah. And in the same way that the science of misinformation is relatively new, it's clear that government response to dealing with misinformation is relatively new as well. That you know that example of meta and you can't find CBC stories on Instagram at all. They're just not there. Um and the people there who people who primarily get their news from social media are just not going to be exposed to that voice at all.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Yeah, that's such- I mean, Jennifer really provided a range of really compelling examples, and that that one really struck me as government actors and and public policy have you know different types of levers that we don't often think about necessarily in this space. One of the things that that you really um emphasized on multiple occasions that's that you know is a thread through a lot of our conversations is really this this idea of trust and public trust in institutions and how do we maintain that. And I think what what I really took from this conversation is to think about the trust being fundamental, but there are trust eroding activities that are happening that um you know often we're we've been talking about strategies for addressing misinformation, but thinking about how to do we need to start thinking about strategies for expecting that part of mis and disinformation and especially disinformation actors are about trying to undermine trust. Um, and so could we start thinking about pre-bunking some of that? What can we do going in, expecting that, not just you know, the the general how do we keep the foot on the pedal of maintaining public trust, but expect that there's going to be efforts to try to chip away at that. Um, and how do we how do we get ahead of that?

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean we do we know there are things that we know that are common patterns about misinformation. We know that when when disasters occur that are particularly particularly unfortunate, particularly large scale, we know that there is likely to be a conspiracy theory that develops around it. Right? That has happened pretty consistently across a wide range of major stories over many years. You know, my first experience with it was the JFK assassination, but there there have been around 9-11, there have been around the Challengers, just many of those situations occur. So misinformation builds up around those situations pretty consistently. So how do we make use of that? How can we design some sort of educational strategy that says, hey, the next time this happens, look out for X, Y, and Z. You know, that maybe those tools are out there, I don't know. But um, it seems like we should be thinking about anticipating.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Aaron Ross Powell And it feels, I mean, in some ways, feels kind of cynical to think uh any new event is going to generate this. But like you say, we have this obvious pattern, um, so why not get ahead of it where we can and expect it rather than have to be always in reaction mode where you know the the Calgary Watermane example of being a really neat example of how quickly they they responded, but they were in response mode rather than anticipation mode. Not that you could necessarily expect that seems like kind of a wild space to expect misinformation to come out.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

Um clearly it can come. Yeah. I mean, would we have seen that that kind of spread of misinformation 20 years ago around a water main break? Maybe not. But you know, but it's clearly a tech-supported thing. Yeah. We're in a we're in a world now where misinformation can spring up uh around not just the 9-11s, not just the COVID's, but other things as well. And um yeah, just underlines the fact that we've got to get more creative about the tools we use to try to counteract it.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yeah, and and exactly right, Jamie. And thankfully we have experts like Jennifer that can bring those wider perspectives as we think more creatively in the space. This podcast is produced in collaboration with Podcraft Productions.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

For links to the research discussed in this episode, go to the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

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SPEAKER_03 43:30

I'm Justin Presseau, and I'm Jamie Burheau. Thanks for listening.