Misinformation is the dilemma students write about most and explain least. The useful part is the mechanism, and it comes straight from the characteristics in the last micro.
One false claim followed from posting to correction, drawn by how far it has travelled.
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Four families
Psychological
Addiction, attention, comparison with other people's edited lives, and the effect on sleep and mood.
Truth
Misinformation shared in error, disinformation spread on purpose, and synthetic media that makes seeing an unreliable test.
Ownership
Intellectual property, plagiarism, and who owns a model trained on other people's work.
Representation
Who appears, who is stereotyped, and whose voice is amplified or removed by moderation.
Misinformation and disinformation: Misinformation is false and shared without intent to mislead. Disinformation is false and spread deliberately. Using the wrong word in an answer about a deliberate campaign weakens it.
Journalism and truth
Fragmentation
Audiences split across thousands of sources, so no shared set of news reaches everyone.
Consolidation
Fewer, bigger companies own more outlets, and local papers close.
Authenticity and sourcing
Checking where a clip came from and whether it was changed, which deepfakes make harder.
Who owns media?
Copyright
The creator controls copying and reuse for a set time.
Copyleft
Free to reuse, as long as what you make is shared on the same free terms.
Creative Commons
Ready-made licences saying how others may reuse, such as "credit me, no commercial use".
Open source
Code published for anyone to read, change and share.
Remix culture
New work built from existing work: memes, mash-ups, fan edits, often in a grey area of copyright.
What survives, and what is allowed
Obsolescence
Formats and devices die: files on floppy discs or in old apps can no longer be opened.
Digital preservation
Copying and converting media so it can still be read; the Internet Archive has saved web pages since 1996.
Censorship and content filters
Blocking content by law or by software, from school filters to national firewalls.
Moral panics and decency
Waves of fear about new media, and standards of what is decent, offensive or objectionable, which differ between societies.
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Every proposed fix for the truth dilemma runs into the same problem: somebody has to decide what is false, and that somebody is a company.
Moderate more
- Less harm reaches people who did not seek it
- Coordinated campaigns can be disrupted
- Platforms already do this — the question is how, not whether
Moderate less
- A private company decides what may be said
- Rules made for one country apply to all of them
- Mistakes fall hardest on people with least ability to appeal
Real-world examples you can name
The Christchurch attack livestream and the Christchurch Call — attack March 2019; Call launched May 2019
An attacker livestreamed a mass shooting; copies were re-uploaded faster than moderation systems removed them. New Zealand and France then convened governments and platforms around a shared commitment to eliminate terrorist content online.
Who it affected: The victims' communities, and moderators and users exposed to the footage.
The Zelensky surrender deepfake — March 2022
A synthetic video showing Ukraine's president telling troops to lay down their arms circulated on social media and briefly on a hacked news website. It was crude enough to be debunked within hours, but it is the standard example of synthetic media used in wartime.
Who it affected: Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, and anyone judging what video evidence is worth.
Australia's News Media Bargaining Code — passed February 2021
A law designed to make large platforms negotiate payment with news publishers for content that appears on their services. Facebook briefly blocked news for Australian users while it was being debated; the law passed in amended form and several deals followed.
Who it affected: News publishers, platform users, and regulators elsewhere who copied the model.
How this is tested — this micro carries most of the long questions in topic 3.5. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part c: evaluate a platform's handling of false information
- Part b: explain a psychological or truth concern
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q3: contrast two sources on a media controversy
- Q4: synthesise sources on moderation or synthetic media
The trap: “social media is bad”: The markband wants a mechanism and a counter-argument. Name how the spread works and what the proposed fix would cost.
To what extent should platforms be responsible for false information posted by their users?
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