In the age of Social Media does disinformation affect Kent's locals?

KentOnline / KMTV

Information has never been more accessible today in our pockets with news, opinions and  speculation, the rise of fake news and misinformation has drastically increased.     Social media and how it platforms AI can make it difficult to separate the truth from fiction.  Our reporter Marcellus Almazar went to Canterbury to find out more...

Transcript

00:00I get my news from Tiktok.net

00:02BBC News

00:03Tiktok and Instagram

00:04The paper

00:05The Times

00:06I use Kent online a lot

00:07The Times

00:09We get like the headlines read every day at one

00:11Tiktok, Yahoo Finance or GV News

00:14Mainly social media

00:15Apple News

00:17With an influx of information coming from our phones, our TVs and even through word of mouth

00:22how are you meant to decipher which voices to listen to?

00:25I headed to the University of Kent to find out more

00:28A big part of this is driven by commercial factors

00:31People are producing content using AI or fake news or creating distorted information

00:37in areas where they know they're going to get a lot of clicks

00:39There was a picture of the Pope who had been doctored so it looked like he was wearing a giant white puffer jacket

00:45And it was one of the first times that an AI generated image had been so convincing a journalist were taken in by it

00:51There were always telltale signs that a picture had been created

00:54That's less the case now

00:56And as it becomes more convincing, news organisations fall foul of it

01:00And every time they do, that's another reason for people to trust the news less

01:04With disinformation coming from everywhere, how is this attacking society's most vulnerable?

01:10It is a major problem for those of us in the health service

01:14Because the effect of that is it's starting to drop vaccination rates

01:19Making people more reluctant to accept treatments which are really very important

01:23And that's despite the fact that vaccination is one of the most successful things that we've come up with

01:27Really in the history of medicine

01:29Because for a lot of diseases, it's the only way to present that disease

01:32And if you look at the case of measles for example, once you've got it, there's very limited treatment you can do

01:38So stopping people catching in the first place makes a big difference

01:41So what can we do to fight against this?

01:43I spoke to one organisation, ShoutOut UK

01:46Arming young people with the tools to do exactly this

01:49The cost of creating mass disinformation campaigns has drastically decreased

01:54It also means that you can pump out, you know, false information quite quickly, quite effectively

02:01And also make it look real

02:03The professionalism of this information is definitely getting, for lack of a better term, better

02:09Prevention is easier and cheaper than cure, right?

02:12So the idea that actually what we do is rather than waiting for someone to potentially show signs of radicalisation

02:18We aim to give all young people critical thinking skills around understanding, you know, what to look out for

02:25How do algorithms work?

02:27Looking at kind of data manipulation and how that works

02:29What are bot accounts?

02:30How to spot these things

02:31But also understanding yourself

02:33Quite often, whenever we speak to people about this, miss or malinformation

02:38People often assume, well, yeah, of course, like this is definitely something that exists, but it's not me

02:43I'm not going to fall for it

02:45Other people will, but it's not me

02:46And the reality is that we all need to build our critical thinking skills

02:51So when you see or hear something online, make sure to check your sources to see if it's authentic

02:56Because not everything is always as it seems

02:59Marcellus Almazar, KMTV

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