Misinformation and disinformation (whether accidental or deliberately false) disproportionately impacts those who are already disenfranchised and are often the targets of hateful rhetoric. But those same communities can also be targeted. When it happens in your own home or community, it can feel especially painful. And it can be difficult to respond.
My nightmares involve conspiracy theorists and propagandists on YouTube, and arguments with my mother because my politics don’t align with hers. These nightmares are intertwined.
Our most recent fight occurred a few days before I finished this essay for the Minnesota Woman’s Newspaper. My mother had seen someone on YouTube talking about the “re-education camps” that Democrats want to send Republicans to. She asked me what I thought about it, if the idea scared me. “Can you believe Democrats are this evil?”
Usually I keep quiet, but this time I couldn’t. “This is fake news,” I replied. We continued the fight, following the same path that had become normal for us.
During my doctoral studies, In recent years, he has worked as a community journalist. I became focused on disinformation and misinformation, and I started teaching community journalism because I wanted to make sure I knew how communities of color, QT communities, immigrant communities, low-income communities respond to the failure of the U.S. media to tell meaningful, contextual stories about their experiences of oppressive systems.
After Donald Trump was elected, my mother started watching Russia Today (RT). Now every night she sits with my father and watches what I call propaganda: Colonel Douglas McGregor, Larry Johnson, Judge Napolitano, and other white conservative (or libertarian) men. They all scare me.
My mother is an incredibly smart woman. For most of my life, she was also an incredibly kind woman. Over the last few years, as I’ve watched her on the YouTube platform, I’ve seen her become even crueler. She believes that the world is out to attack Christians, to attack people like her and my father. The media she watches is saturated with anti-transgender and anti-queer hatred. To them, liberals and leftists are the devil incarnate working for the deep state. I don’t know how she fell down this rabbit hole.
My family is of Middle Eastern descent, so it is also horrifying to see those same propagandists exploiting the tragedy of genocide to push their anti-American, anti-democratic views.I want to scream: “Don’t you know that they are using you and Palestine (and Lebanon, Syria and Iran) to further their own agenda?” I wish I could put it into better words as to what that agenda is.
When my mother talks about the possibility of a Civil War, I worry because I know we would not be on the same side. My commitment to justice and to the community I have organized and taught in runs so deep. My mother taught me that loyalty. I hope that the mother who raised me would understand if I chose not to be on her side.
When I worry about election night violence and rioters threatening to “stop the steal,” I worry that their parents are cheering them on from home while I report on the violence from the streets.
If Trump were president again, I would report on community organizing, mutual aid, and the many people who are hurting, and my parents might even believe that people who are hurting deserve coverage.
I think of the Tennessee shooting in 2023, the only school shooting that has been discussed in our household in recent years, because the shooter was a transgender man.
I’m thinking about the Uvalde case, which some in my family believe was engineered by a liberal government to overturn the Second Amendment and use that to overturn the rest of the Bill of Rights.
As a Democrat and left-leaning, I often think about what my parents and family think of me, because my political stances definitely make me the enemy.
As a nearly 40-year-old woman living in this country, I’m outraged by this propaganda, and as a journalist, I’m outraged by these platforms, and I think journalists should be terrified that it’s undermining their ability to do their jobs.
Here’s what I think: Misinformation is accidental or accidentally false information. Disinformation is intentional. Its purpose is to hurt us all.
“Disinformation is a weapon of divide and conquer. It’s a weapon that’s used strategically and subtly to keep people divided,” said Anastasia Belladonna Carrera, executive director of Common Cause MN. “Disinformation is about who has political power, who has socio-economic power, so we have to ask ourselves who benefits from disinformation.”
Misinformation and disinformation come in many forms and vary depending on the community and access to the internet. In urban and suburban communities, social media networks can be a source of misinformation and disinformation. In rural communities, which tend to have less broadband access, misinformation and disinformation can spread through relationship networks, with respected individuals spreading fake news.
“A common impact for both urban and rural communities experiencing disinformation and misinformation is that it can undermine social cohesion and trust in institutions,” Belladonna Carrera says, arguing that countering this should be central to our conversations about the media and their responsibility to a functioning democracy.
“Media that was created to promote the public interest, hold power accountable and build mutual understanding is now actually competing with narratives of deliberate disinformation and misinformation — conspiracy theories,” Belladonna Carrera said.
This could lead to increased distrust in traditional media, as well as elections and government institutions. If people don’t trust the electoral process, they may feel no need to participate in elections and may not trust the results.
“Think about weapons like redistricting and fraudulent district drawing. What are they for? To keep brown and black people out of political power. If we can’t stop people from gaining power through districts designed to invalidate and waste their vote, then we need to keep them out of the ballot box,” Belladonna Carrera said, quickly pointing out that misinformation and disinformation aren’t just about race.
Low-income white communities are just as susceptible to misinformation and disinformation as non-white communities, despite often hearing harmful narratives about Black and brown communities. This might sound like this: Your small business won’t go out of business because of big corporations or anti-small business laws. It’s because of illegal immigrants, or the transgender person living next door, or the big city, or that person over there.
One form of disinformation specifically comes from the use of “deepfake technology.”
“Deepfakes are videos, audio recordings or photographs created using artificial intelligence-powered tools to realistically impersonate people without their consent or authorization,” Rep. Zach Stevenson (D-Coon Rapids) said at a 2023 meeting of the House Campaign Finance and Policy Committee, who drafted a bill during the 2023 legislative session aimed at banning the use of deepfake technology to influence Minnesota elections.
The bill, along with a Senate counterpart authored by Sen. Erin Mae Quaid (D-Apple Valley), built on earlier legislation aimed at banning other forms of election interference.
m isDisinformation can lead to a lack of trust in our political and social systems, but disinformation deliberately seeks to create that lack of trust. “I believe the reason misinformation and disinformation has become so prevalent in Minnesota is because we haven’t had enough discussion about the role of the media in a healthy and accountable democracy,” Belladonna Carrera said.
Belladonna Carrera added that Minnesota needs two separate responses aimed at vaccinating rural, suburban and urban areas. One approach is “Encourage people to fact-check thoroughly; there are online fact-checkers available to check for credibility, bias and political leaning.”
“But it’s important to note that disinformation and misinformation isn’t just about facts. It’s also about words being deliberately used to provoke particular emotions and particular responses,” she adds.
In my family, I have seen information being distorted, which has put incredible strain on us. We have lost a lot of trust in each other. Home life is constantly tense. I don’t know how to speak up against my parents because it’s not acceptable in my culture. But I also can’t sit back and watch as my beloved parents disappear before my eyes.
I don’t have an answer for who benefits from my parents’ disappearance, but when I think about who benefits, I think about the money they are donating to platforms, causes, and propaganda that they never donated to before.
