It's very easy to be deceived

What we commonly call fake news, and what experts more accurately term "disinformation", has become a serious problem that affects us as citizens. To put it simply: if the information we base our decisions on is not truthful, the decisions we make will be wrong. This has real-life consequences. We have seen this not only in the world of politics but also in information about the pandemic, about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and about the tragedy of the DANA in Valencia.

disinformation or fake news is deliberately false information that is distributed through the media and social media. Behind any false information there is always an actor (economic, political or social) who wants to profit from the falsehood, for example, to win an election, to make money, to gain influence and power, etc. Often, disinformation doesn't just aim to deceive us, but also makes us doubt reliable sources, leading us to a point where we no longer believe anything or anyone.

But aside from deliberate lies, we also have biased, incorrect or incomplete information (misinformation). In these cases, we cannot say that someone is trying to deceive us, but rather that the information we receive is misleading. This happens, for example, when a journalist is in a hurry and doesn't have time to verify a fact, or isn't an expert on a subject and doesn't interpret the information correctly. It also happens when someone spreads rumours without really knowing if they're true or not, or when we fail to properly read irony and sarcasm and misinterpret a message.

The mixture of disinformation and biased information creates what UNESCO calls "information disorder", which makes it very difficult for us to separate the wheat from the chaff and find information that is genuinely useful and valuable for our daily lives. For this reason, the following principles can form part of attempts to solve this problem:

• Journalists and communication professionals should be well trained and have sufficient resources to produce honest and truthful reporting without relying on external pressures, thereby restoring confidence in the profession. 
• Citizens must be aware that if they want to be well informed, they can no longer be passive (e.g. I believe what the media and social networks tell me); instead, they must be active, they must carefully select the sources from which they get their information, establish a balanced media diet and make an effort to stop, check and, if they suspect that what they have received is not entirely clear, not to share it. To do this, we need to learn what is called media literacy, that is, how to use browsers, websites, social media and digital verification tools available to everyone. There are interesting free platforms and resources, such as Learn to Check or First Draft. 
• Disinformation should be combatted not by censoring content but by strengthening detection and verification. The temptation to regulate content online, however justified it may seem, raises the problem of who controls the regulator and how the line is drawn between freedom of expression and the right to receive truthful information. The example of former US President Donald Trump is paradigmatic in this regard, when he vehemently claimed that media outlets that did not uncritically reproduce his messages were creating fake news. Or when, under the pretext of a state's security, it is suggested that certain messages cannot be broadcast and are labelled as false simply because they are critical or offer alternative interpretations of reality. 

Adding to all this is the challenge posed by the current and future dishonest use of generative artificial intelligence, which in the wrong hands can generate even more confusion about the veracity of texts, photos and videos.  

All in all, this paints a rather complex scenario in which all the actors involved have a great deal to do and a great deal to say, especially the general public who, far from being increasingly manipulable, can make proper use of the myriad resources provided by the new media ecosystem to produce, consume and distribute truthful information. As was said at the beginning, if we have good information, we can make good decisions, and this strengthens and improves our society and politics.