Resnick: How do we control the dissemination of information that is untrue?

Though the rise of social media has given access to information from a myriad of sources, disinformation and bad faith social media campaigns have made it difficult for people to find reputable information. 

Paul Resnick, a professor of information and associate dean at the University of Michigan School of Information, says it’s more important than ever to cultivate trust between the public and responsible sources. 

In Concord Times, a daily publication covering politics, business and technology, Resnick talks about finding trustworthy sources of information to avoid faulty information. 

“The internet has made it possible for many voices to be heard that could not make it through the bottleneck that controlled what would be distributed before,” Resnick says. “Initially, when they saw the prospect of this, many people were excited about this opening up to multiple voices. Now we are seeing some of those voices saying things we don’t like and there is great concern about how we control the dissemination of things that seem to be untrue.”

This puts the onus on users of social media to weed through echo chambers, challenge sources and determine what reliable sources of information to believe. 

“I think it is going to be not figuring out what to believe but who to believe,” he adds. “It is going to come down to the reputations of the sources of the information. They don’t have to be the ones we had in the past.”

Read more about Resnick’s research at UMSI.