Misinformation and disinformation have become buzzwords of the last decade. The former relates to misleading or inaccurate information; the latter to false information deliberately circulated for political ends.
Concern about the spread of both evils rose considerably during the Covid pandemic and has been fuelled by Russia’s ever-more-brazen efforts to interfere with democracies across Europe and elsewhere.
But do we place undue attention on the role of misinformation? Perverse as it may sound, there are reasons to think so.
First, the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle tells us that the amount of energy needed to refute misinformation (or bullshit) is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it. The Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini came up with this law of social media to highlight how the odds are stacked massively in favour of bad actors.
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Fact-checkers are hugely disadvantaged as misinformation ultimately never dies. So, if you’re trying to protect your democracy, fact-checking is arguably an inefficient use of your time.
Second, we may have overestimated the role of misinformation in undermining democratic norms. Yascha Mounk, the German-American political scientist and host of the excellent The Good Fight podcast, has made this argument.
Examining the response in the United States to the murder of Charlie Kirk, Mounk noted how Democrats and Republicans united very briefly in a shared moral stance against political violence. But this almost immediately disintegrated into finger-pointing, threats of “revenge” and the usual pitting of “us” against “them”.
Why did the centre fall apart so quickly? “Misinformation played some role but I don’t think it was the real driver here,” says Mounk. Rather, he suggests, it was “the dopamine hit of, you know, ‘hating’ on people and getting likes from it on social media, combined with irresponsible leadership, combined with the deep, deep polarisation of our society today”.
On the question of what’s behind our political malaise, Mounk says he is “increasingly sceptical of the misinformation explanation”. Instead, “it is becoming more and more obvious” that social media is the key factor. Online platforms reward hate, rage and ridicule. As their influence spreads they are reprogramming not just public debate but private character. Mounk points to studies showing Americans are becoming less conscientious and more neurotic in a trend linked to the rise of the smartphone.
There is a third reason why we should take some focus off misinformation. This is to allow us to put some focus instead on poor standards of argumentation.
Shane Ryan, an Irish philosophy lecturer at the City University of Hong Kong, says there are “limitations” with fact-checking that could be addressed with what he calls logic-checking.
A central problem for fact-checking is that you rely on sources such as government statistics or scientific research to debunk myths. But this effort “often falls flat because the target audience often don’t trust or have misgivings about the source that is providing the checking testimony”.
Ryan has written a paper on the subject with a colleague, Matthew Hammerton. Their position is “not that we should give up on fact-checking” but rather that it should be bolstered by logic-checking. This “would identify mistakes in formal and informal logic”.
They suggest a three-step approach: (1) clarifying claims about meaning; (2) highlighting implicit premises that need to be scrutinised; and (3) pointing to putative counterexamples or obvious counterarguments that need to be addressed.
Take the debate on Irish neutrality. Being neutral is different from being non-aligned to a military bloc. So understood, how is neutrality morally justifiable? And what exactly does president-elect Catherine Connolly mean when she calls for “active” neutrality?
Or take the debate on Irish unity. In the presidential campaign, Heather Humphreys said she was in favour of a united Ireland but she “strongly disagreed” with changing the Irish flag and national anthem to facilitate unity. The Tricolour is “a symbol of reconciliation and peace”, she said. The implicit assumption is that unionists share this understanding of the flag, which is demonstrably false.
On counterarguments, one could point to South Africa, where creating a new flag was integral to the process of reconciliation and unity. And returning to the neutrality debate, one could look at whether more militarised EU countries are making a greater contribution to peace-building internationally than stay-out-of-the-fight Ireland.
The point here isn’t to settle the dispute on either topic, but to highlight how the three-step logic-checking process could enrich our public debate.
Attractive as logic-checking seems, however, there is the question of practicality in a world where spaces for calm and measured dialogue seem to be shrinking. Before you check your logic, do you need to check your emotions and, in particular, tone down the rage and indignation?
“One benefit of employing logic-checks is that it seems likely to have that effect,” Ryan replies. “Showing how some reasoning violates logic by highlighting implicit premises or providing uncontroversial counterexamples seems likely to lower temperatures.”
But let’s not underestimate the challenge. Many of us are now getting our debating points from hate posts or “hot takes” laced with exaggerations. I know most people who come across this article will only read the headline – and a good number of them will hate it for that very reason: “Typical Irish Times, lecturing us about logic.” But it’s in all our interests to find a way to have better discussions.
