Reboot in Forbes

Misinformation and disinformation distort public discourse, disrupt the democratic process, and contribute to violence. But we now know better how to address these campaigns – and in knowing better we have the potential to do better.

We are seeing two protests in one: The first, a true grassroots protest organized by a small group of anti-vax Canadian truckers, while a more more global protest is pushed by far-right social media agitators.

Cognitive biases are a significant factor in how people go through life and interpret information. Because these biases, which can operate simultaneously, are currently playing such a large role today in everything from Covid vaccine hesitancy to shifting political landscapes, now is the time to pay special attention to ways that they can be managed.

Whether it be doom-scrolling on Twitter, listening to podcast after podcast, or checking in on every last CNN.com alert, what researchers call “information overload” has become a widespread problem, especially for young people whose habits have developed in the smartphone era.

Writing created by artificial intelligence has dramatically improved over the last few years. Such robot-generated text is now used in newsrooms as well as by companies looking to generate content quickly and cheaply. Worse, these tools are being used by those creating fake news as well.

Most of the time jumping to conclusions is harmless, but it is a problem when jumping to conclusions becomes the default, especially in relation to decisions made about complex social and political issues, where more fine-grained reasoning is typically required.