Call us humans superficial, but how things look matters a great deal to us. We form opinions based on how good we think something looks – not focusing on whether it’s safe or kind or smart – or even true. Steve Jobs was right, design matters. In fact, design matters so much that it impacts the way misinformation spreads. In a Risky-by-Design case study from the 5Rights Foundation, these design features contributed to how successful misinformation spreads online:

  • Popularity metrics: Recommendations from popular creators
  • Fake accounts: Many platforms are overrun with bots
  • Recommendation systems: Algorithms create echo chambers or similar posts to read, videos to watch or groups to join
  • Ineffective content labelling: Subtle content label design — such as for identifying something as an ad or joke — are often easy to miss
  • Autoplay: When videos or audio finishes, many apps automatically start playing a new one by design
  • Disappearing content: Content that gets shared and then quickly removed is harder to fact-check
  • Trending lists: Algorithms identify which hashtags or topics are most popular and sharing them with more users, without assessing the trending item for truth
  • Seamless sharing: When sharing content directly, many apps and platforms suggest a ready-made list of people

Teach your kids to protect themselves from false news and disinformation by following diverse people and perspectives. Explain to your kids that relying upon a small number of like-minded news sources limits what information they are exposed to and increases the odds they may fall victim to hoaxes or false rumors. All consumers of media, young and old, should follow this advice about consuming media. This practice will increase the odds of hearing well-balanced and diverse viewpoints.

Conversation Starters

  1. Content creators who have a large following and spread misinformation have a wider reach. Can you name an example of this?
  2. Bots and fake profiles may spread misinformation as their sole purpose. Can you name an example of this?
  3. Why are echo chambers problematic and how do they contribute to misinformation?
  4. If you cannot tell if something is intended as a joke or is an advertisement, what could you misunderstand and what kind of problems could this cause?
  5. What have you accidently seen online when auto play took over?
  6. Apps that hide content can spread misinformation because it doesn’t give viewers the chance to check if it’s true. Has this ever happened to you?
  7. Algorithms cannot assess trending content and just because something is trending does not make it true. Have you ever gotten caught up with trending content only to find out later that it was untrue?
  8. Sharing with groups online makes it easy to share misinformation with a large group of people at once. Have you ever seen this happen?

Learn More

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