Mis (Disinformation) and Twitter

 In this response, I take care to include "(dis)" in instances I cannot be sure of the intentions.

In the era of the Twitter (and I will not be calling it X) community notes, mis (dis) information on the site has taken a rather hilarious hit, but has also revealed just how much of Twitter is just that, mis(dis)information. In the Kuo and Marwick piece, “Critical Disinformation Studies: History, Power and Politics”, they write "First, positing a current crisis of fragmented “truth” due to technologically enabled polarization presumes that, prior to the advent of social platforms, the public agreed upon “facts” and “knowledge.” The below tweet echoes a similar sentiment, many tweets that have gone viral in the months since the launch of the community notes feature have been marked with fact-checks, revealing how much wrong information permeates the site.

Similarly, Kuo and Marwick mention how misinformation prevailed even prior to social media, which many credit for the rise. Rather, misinformation has always been prevalent, the difference between then and now, is simply the reach; I believe that the amount of disinformation has nor changed, but rather is able to spread furhter. The writers talk about how black spaces presented their counters to the streotypical assumptions peddled about the race by white-dominated media, and in the cases of this example, the reach of these white centered mis(dis)nformation campaigns is wide due to social media, but due to these black spaces also existing on public social media, so is the counterinformation. The CNN article specifally is a great example as CNN has touched on an article that holds some truth to it, but due to the exisitng view of many African countries being homophobic (not denying the truth of this), the headline presents the case in a way that highlights this perceived homophia rather than the sexual assuault perfomed by the men; furthing Uganda as a homophobc country and not accounting for the nuances of this particular situation. This mis(dis)information is then foiled by Twitter community notes.

In the second reading assigned,“Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information”, the writer notes that "Finally, digital platforms systematize incentives that can drive the spread of problematic information". With the launch of the payouts for Twitter premium users with a lot of enagegment on Twitter, many of them have resorted to different tactics in order to farm for engagement. One of such tactics is, of course, the spread of mis(dis)information. Sometimes dangerous but other times harmless, such as the tweet below. 

This form of mis(dis)information is obviously debunked, and even prior to the community notes feature was easily done. However, it is incentivized the hope of a payout for the amount of impressions and engagement it will it brings to the user. Exemplifying the point made by Jack.

Twitter is a greats site for the analysation of the spread of mis(dis)information and consistently proves so everyday.