Perhaps one of the great unheralded byproducts of the AI disinformation age, is that the accusation of something being AI disinformation can be falsely applied, itself as a disinformation tool. In fact, one need only check the comments section under any video or social media quote that is, let’s say, ideologically inconvenient, to find someone quite frequently accusing that video of being AI or accusing that quote of being disinformation, without having fact-checked it themselves.
A toxic culture is fast developing where it is (quite incorrectly) seen as within reasonable civility, or even within expectations of being intellectually thorough, to comment to cast true evidence in doubt without simply fact-checking it yourself. Is it possible that some of these accounts casting true evidence in doubt are themselves bots and trolls?
It seems people have more or less entirely forgotten to remind each other how easy it is to fact-check whether basic information like a viral video or news story, is true or not. Is the issue not with a fringe minority who are posting to cast true evidence in doubt, but instead with the rest of us for giving such toxic comments a pass?
At the root of this problem is a shift that took place in the discourse around disinformation during my Millennial generation, in which the term “propaganda” was phased out and the term “disinformation” became favored.
I studied Propaganda Theory as part of my MA dissertation at Ottawa’s St. Paul University (a University of Ottawa school), and later studied under the late, great Dr. David Culbert, who wrote the Encyclopedia of Propaganda. A disturbing aspect of the media and academic narrative shifting from discussing “propaganda” to discussing “disinformation” is the doors it closes to any and all debate.
Before, during the Cold War and the immediate post-Cold War period, the term “propaganda” was favored to discuss political framing and even openly false information. This meant an even-handed look at the media output of all sides, where all sides could be viewed critically and discussed in-depth. With the replacement of the concept of “propaganda” with the concept of “disinformation,” being even-handed went out the window. All of a sudden, if it cannot be proven to be flagrantly falsehood, it will not be examined critically at all. An in-depth discussion of problematic aspects of your own side’s media output has scarcely existed since, as it is impossible to even bring up unless you are going to label that media output “disinformation,” which nobody is going to do with the media output of their own side.
At the same time, the label of disinformation is certainly an accusation you are free to volley to your heart’s content at the opposing side of any issue. I published with the Washington Examiner in 2023 that the media and social media debates around the Gaza War frequently saw both sides attempting to dismiss verified true information as “disinformation” in the comments under those news articles or posts. The language of anti-disinformation had suddenly become a disinformation tool.
Now a few short years later, with the continued rise of AI, this problem is completely out of control. Any debate, no matter how inane, can see the opposing side’s verifiable evidence called AI or the other side’s verifiable supporters called bots. Is the real AI slop and bot problem out of control? Of course. Does that justify giving people a pass for falsely accusing each other of sharing AI slop when they did not, or being a bot when they are not? Absolutely it does not justify that. In fact, part of the toxic legacy of the rise of AI is that everyone’s credibility is at risk, and that comes down not just on Sam Altman’s shoulders but on the shoulders of all of us who look the other way when people perpetuate falsehood in the name of anti-disinformation, in order to deliberately discredit the other side of their political or social debate of choice.
Ironically, even the debate around AI itself frequently sees the most paranoia about who and what is AI. More or less anyone can be called a bot and more or less any anti-AI viral post can be accused of being AI-generated.
From the debate around AI to the debate around the Gaza War, the false accusation of disinformation is now normalized on social media. And this owes to a reluctance by observers and participants to call people on it. Which owes to a strong obstinance in the mainstream narrative around disinformation, a refusal to address that the language of anti-disinformation is now a disinformation tool.
Perhaps we need to change what constitutes keeping good anti-disinformation hygiene on your social media accounts. When your own comments sections under your own posts veer toward undermining the perceived veracity of verifiable information, simply dot your i’s and cross your t’s and point it out.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
Great article, Jay
I can’t stand that people now feel free to suggest anything inconvenient is now the product of some AI hallucination