Opinion: Lies, damn lies and social media — there’s a reason this country is so deeply polarized.

Many unsettling statistics jumped out at me as I watched “Reliable: All Voices Heard,” a brand new documentary about how distrust in media, exacerbated by rampant misinformation and disinformation on social media, can corrode our religion in democracy:

Greater than two-thirds of all Individuals understand a severe risk to our democracy.

Half of all Individuals imagine there will likely be civil struggle in the USA within the subsequent few years.

Opinion Columnist

Robin Abcarian

And — no shock right here — two-thirds of Individuals really feel worn out by the information they’re getting right this moment.

“We’re 100% the Divided States of America,” says Kevin Geffers Sr., a Texas painter interviewed by Stephany Zamora, a first-time filmmaker who was so unsettled by the occasions of Jan. 6 that she loaded up a bus together with her crew and traveled greater than 5,000 miles throughout the nation interviewing journalists, media consultants and civilians. Was it attainable, she requested, for folks on reverse sides of the political spectrum to seek out frequent floor once we can’t even agree on what’s true?

“The American individuals are confused and annoyed,” former Fox Information anchor Laurie Dhue tells the filmmaker.

“Not understanding what the reality is is very exhausting for our democracy, it scares me so much,” says Columbia College journalism professor and historian Andie Tucher.

We additionally encounter MIT administration professor Sinan Aral, who wrote “The Hype Machine,” a 2020 guide in regards to the “perils and promise” of social media. Aral, who has studied social networks for 20 years, made three predictions within the guide: that faux information would catalyze political violence, that anti-vaxx misinformation might disrupt the rollout of vaccines and that social media had the ability to sway fairness markets. All of three got here true, and it didn’t take lengthy.

The Jan. 6 rebellion was the direct results of the execrable lie that Democrats had stolen the 2020 election from former President Trump.

In January 2021, a serious vaccination effort at Dodger Stadium was interrupted when anti-vaxx protesters shut it down for almost an hour.

Additionally in January 2021, a Reddit-driven effort to revive the inventory worth of the struggling online game retailer GameStop resulted within the inventory rising 1,000% in two weeks.

“Social media is rewriting the central nervous system of humanity by algorithmically connecting, informing, nudging, persuading, mobilizing, and sure, entertaining us,” writes Aral in a brand new preface to “The Hype Machine.” “It’s been doing so for years, with clear, measurable and profound implications for our democracies, our economies and our public well being. And it’s time we woke as much as these realities.”

The place, oh, the place is Walter Cronkite while you want him?

I child.

As reliable a determine as Uncle Walter was, he represents a world that’s lengthy gone. That was a world the place Individuals bought their information from the three main tv networks, AM radio and their native newspapers. There was no cable information, no Google, no Fb, no TikTok, no Twitter/X. No podcasts. There was no on-line Russian interference in our presidential elections, no deep fakes, no AI.

But even earlier than all these digital distractions and deceptions, I daresay now we have all the time been a nation divided. Division, in some methods, is the essence of democracy.

However what has develop into so distressing in our present second is the cynical and widespread manipulation of these divisions with using outright lies. Fact itself, one thing we used to have the ability to agree on, has been undermined.

From 2016 to 2021, based on the nonpartisan Pew Analysis Heart, the share of Individuals who’ve “so much or some” belief in nationwide information dropped from 76% to 58%.

“Many of the decline,” reviews Pew, “has come from Republicans or those that lean Republican.”

Massive shock there. Not.

Trump was elected in 2016 and started (or, slightly, continued) to spout lies with the rate of a gushing hearth hose. He popularized the phrase “faux information” to explain any data he disagreed with. Years earlier, he unfold racist lies about former President Obama’s birthplace. As soon as in workplace, his first massive official lie was in regards to the dimension of his inauguration crowds. He lied about international local weather change, calling it a Chinese language hoax. He lied in regards to the hazard posed by the coronavirus and undermined his administration’s well being consultants. His most corrosive lie was that he gained the 2020 presidential election, one thing he and his allies repeated so many instances {that a} surprising proportion of Republicans really imagine it, and tons of of his supporters acted on it on Jan. 6, 2021.

Naturally, social media has performed an enormous function in propagating Trump’s falsehoods and riling up his believers. (And sure, in fact, Democrats lie, however not on a scale that compares to the GOP beneath Trump.)

We’ve identified for a very long time, because the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride tells Zamora within the documentary, that “Fb positioned a disproportionate quantity of emphasis on anger in its algorithm. In consequence, tales that made you indignant have been extra prone to pop up in your Fb feed.”

And we all know that anger creates political engagement. We see profitable, anger-driven engagement on each political stage — from conservative outrage over who makes use of which bogs to liberal outrage over abortion bans.

Anger just isn’t an issue in and of itself. Anger drove the civil rights motion, the Black Lives Matter motion. Anger drove the Vietnam-era antiwar motion. Anger drove the second wave of feminism and #MeToo. Righteous anger is an effective factor.

The issue with our present second just isn’t that we’re extra divided than ever; it’s not that we get indignant about vital points. It’s that a lot of our division springs from lies that unfold unchecked on social media.

One poignant second from “Reliable” has stayed with me. The MSNBC journalist Ali Velshi says he actually thought that the arrival of social media would imply nobody would be capable of lie anymore as a result of they’d by no means get away with it.

“Reliable” notes that there are lots of efforts afoot to extend social media literacy and enhance crucial considering abilities in hopes of lowering polarization. YouTube, Fb et al have taken child steps to fight the unfold of misinformation, particularly vital with the 2024 presidential marketing campaign in full swing, and the Republican front-runner quintupling down on his lies about 2020.

CNN introduced it could cease over-hyping tales as “breaking information.” An organization known as Floor Information aggregates information from multifarious sources which can be labeled “left,” “proper” and “middle.” Poynter has created the Teen Truth-Checking Community, a digital newsroom of middle- and high-school college students who use social media to debunk viral misinformation.

“Crucial considering,” former NBCUniversal government Paula Madison tells Zamora. “With out it, you’re a sheep.”

@robinkabcarian