Tech Talk- The Impacts Of Mis- And Disinformation W DeVan Hankerson - Madrigal & Maria Rodriguez

Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye. C.D.T. Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk, where we dish on tech and internet policy while also explaining

what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Jamal Maghby and it's time to talk tech. In February, CDT released a report identifying research gaps in our understanding of the link between race and gender in disinformation campaigns.

The report, Facts in their Discontent, a research agenda for disinformation race and gender, identifies key research questions about how race and gender are used in disinformation efforts. The report also makes recommendations for how to tackle related systematic and technical

problems that researchers and others face in addressing these topics. Here to discuss some of the impacts of mis and disinformation on communities of color and across gender identity and discuss their research findings are Maria Rodriguez, assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo and CDT fellow and Devin Hankerson Madrigal, research manager for

CDT. Maria and Devin, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having us. Of course. So let's jump right into it. For our listeners who may be unfamiliar, can you explain exactly what missing disinformation is, Maria?

Sure. So as plain words as I can sort of put together, disinformation can be understood as sort of targeted false information. deliberately developed and deployed to confuse folks, to misdirect folks, and typically to divide folks. So an example would be like,

somebody making you believe that your doctor's appointment is at 10 a.m. when it's really at three. And then misinformation is sort of a little bit more fuzzy, but we can think about it as information

that contradicts the best expert advice or evidence that's available at a specific moment in time. And to me, it's a little bit more dangerous and much more widespread because it's about topics

that are more dynamic. So when thinking about myths and disinformation, I'm curious how different demographics are targeted by these, you know, and what are the harms?

How can this be harmful when talking about different demographics being targeted by this information? Yeah, that's a great question. So it's kind of a complex answer.

But the one thing I'll say is that there's actually a really long history of actors both internal to the United States and external to the United States targeting marginalized communities. And when I say marginalized communities, I mean anyone who isn't a white male who's middle

class and Christian, an able-bodied. And able-bodied, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, but I just wanted to add to that and just to what Maria was saying about the disproportionate targeting of people of color online and to your question about the harms.

I think just from a broader perspective, we can see that the main harm is that disinformation and misinformation sort of undermine these larger goals of societal inclusion and inclusive democracy

because they mainly focus on either intimidation or voter suppression, confusion and chaos And that targeted focus on people of color or marginalized people, I think, further exacerbates

what we've seen as sort of a pretty specific history in the United States of institutional practices and legislation that have limited the opportunities for the democratic participation of people of color.

So it basically gloms onto that and sort of makes it even worse. And we know that like even where disinformation operations are not exclusively targeting people of color, the harms in these communities specifically are more aggravated because of these embedded

political disadvantages that we've seen that are mainly wrought by social and political practice. Yeah. I don't know.

Absolutely. I mean, I think the, you know, we have concrete evidence of, for example, Russian targeting of black Americans very specifically dating back to the 1930s. And even more recently with the past two presidential election cycles, we can, we have clear concrete evidence that the

cleavages of society, right, the sort of tension points, the biggest one arguably, is, you know, racial and ethnic relationships within the United States, and it is a very ripe place for internal and external actors to exacerbate because it is so embedded within our democratic institutions, within our democracy itself, the way we've defined democracy

has been exclusionary as a matter of course. And so it is an incredibly easy thing to do to engage in. Definitely low hanging fruit, I'll agree with you there. So one term I've been hearing

is a miss and disinformation campaign. Can Maria, can you explain what this is and what it hopes to accomplish? Absolutely, so whether we're talking about information

that is specifically produced and deployed to confuse, as in the case of disinformation, or whether we're talking about information that's sort of nebulous,

that's kind of comprised of both truthful and untruthful parts, as in the case of misinformation, the aim is always to confuse and divide.

The aim is always to incite a belief that there is an enemy who you cannot see, And that enemy wants to harm you and people who look like you. And so it's best for you to arm yourself

or in some way protect yourself against these folks. So the important thing about this is that we understand mis and disinformation as happening across populations.

So even mainstream populations, arguably, have also large targets. And so what happens in a campaign is that whoever the actor is will take,

in a disinformation campaign, they will produce false information. For example, like there's a cabal of politicians that are interested in child exploitation,

which is a campaign that we all maybe have recently heard about, and then spread it through specific channels, using visuals, audio, and rhetoric

that is familiar to the networks that they're trying to infiltrate. In the case of misinformation, the difference is that a misinformation campaign

will contain kernels of truth. For example, strategies to prevent COVID-19 are places where there's a lot of misinformation because it'll include accurate things