Information Hygiene: How to Protect Yourself in the Age of Disinformation and Misinformation

When information “goes viral” on the internet, it spreads from person to person like a communicable disease. If the information is not true, then the harm can be widespread. From the 20th century art of public relations through today’s algorithms in social media that enhance “engagement,” the efficiency of self-spreading information has grown exponentially. What can we, as consumers of information, do to protect ourselves?

Using an infection metaphor, the spread of dis- and misinformation could be limited by thorough hand washing, social distancing, masking, testing for the presence of the infection, quarantine, building immunity and treating both the symptoms of infection and its causes. We’ll discuss how to adapt these principles of epidemiology to the containment of bad information.

Barry Cook, Ph.D., has been on the receiving end of a lot of information as a student and professor of social psychology, corporate researcher of audience attitudes and behavior and as a citizen in the age of untrustworthy information. He has tried to separate fact from fiction so that he can make sense of the world and be able to pass along mostly the facts.