According to a recent study by Pew Research Center, Americans who receive their news from social media are less likely to be knowledgeable about political and social events. The study also showed that most Americans who solely got their news from sites like Instagram, Redditt, and Facebook were also less informed about when or where these events are happening, whether the content they are viewing is factual, and how disinformation could be affecting their communities.

The Pew Research Center also found that Americans under the age of thirty and receiving their news from social media were less likely to be white. Roughly 32% of BPOC get their news from social media, while another 36% only get news from local coverage. Another demographic stuck between the crosshairs of disinformation is gender. Women showing 17% higher than men scored 58%, obtaining most of their political and social news from social networks.

To further understand why Americans are selecting social media over news media outlets like the New York Times, Samuel Woolley, assistant Journalism and Media professor at the University of Texas, elaborated on how and why this shift in absorbing information could lead to the spread of disinformation at an inconsistent rate.

“There is a ‘relational’ component to social media – you tend to follow or interact with people you like and trust more than, say, a TV news anchor,” said Professor Woolley when asked why people are prone to trust social media accounts over local and national news outlets.

“These close ties can lead to social media users buying into content, even misinformation, and conspiracy, from friends and family there,” the professor continued.

The Pew Research Center’s survey found that 45% of individuals who use news websites, or apps, fell into the high political knowledge category. About 17% of individuals who got their information from social media fell within the same group. After nine short, relevant questions regarding the previous administration and topics such as which party had previously had control over the US Senate, nearly 57% of American’s getting news from social media scored into the low political knowledge category.

When looking at these numbers, it is troublesome how little social media outlets shield their users from the spread of disinformation. Professor Woolley has looked into what protects these entities and found a security blanket known as computational propaganda, a tool used by these outlets to sway public opinion.

“Computational propaganda uses automated tools like social media bots and curatorial mechanisms like trending algorithms for the manipulation of public opinion over social media. Basically, propagandists can use armies of fake profiles to amplify or suppress particular content,” Professor Woolley clarified.

“In other circumstances, they can deploy fake profiles to attack certain people or ideas. Oftentimes, this type of ‘astroturf’ online politics can result in fake trends on sites like Twitter or YouTube because the trends are based upon the amount of attention a given post gets.”

Using computational propaganda as a security blanket, social media outlets can promote themselves as standbys to free speech when in actuality, they could be posing as one of the potential threats to the functionality of our democracy.

When asked how Americans could combat social media disinformation, Samuel Woolley suggested that the solutions to these problems would have to be technical and social, such as creating browser plug-ins and apps to detect or delete fake or false content while investing in disinformation awareness campaigns, media literacy training, and critical thinking in public education.

A couple of things Professor Woolley suggested to look out for when reading news related topics on social media are suspiciously high follower numbers, frequent posts throughout the day or night, garbled spelling or multiple languages within a post, and a lack of clarity when the account gets an actual back and forth conversation.

Professor Woolley concluded, “There is still a chance to fight back against disinformation and computational propaganda. If we enact sensible online barriers and nuanced regulation of social media, then we can maintain a healthier communication ecosystem and a healthier democracy.”