The Law of Unintended Consequences: How the democratization of information has allowed disinformation to flourish

A lot of us remember life before the internet. In some ways, it doesn’t seem like that long ago. Tasks that we now take for granted, like getting directions, or booking a plane flight, or finding a recipe, were much more arduous and time-consuming. As the internet rapidly became more and more sophisticated and capable of assisting us in these and other basic tasks, it became more and more indispensable. The thought of pulling out a fold-out map of Seattle in order to find an obscure street in Ballard is now genuinely laughable. That’s because the internet turned me (and everyone else) into a cartographic expert. With precision and gentle persuasion (pleasant British female voice: “at the next intersection, make a U-turn”), the GPS on my phone will guide me to my precise destination.

When the internet began to proliferate to every household, it promised to do something revolutionary: it would level the playing field. No longer was access to information the purview of PhDs and specialists who probed the stores of data stored away on microfiche in university libraries. Given the power of a search engine, the common man, with a meager few keystrokes, could access a plethora of sophisticated data about every topic under the sun. It was amazing and it was empowering – we could become our own experts.

It turned out, however, that although the internet was great at giving us access to the information, it wasn’t so good at determining the accuracy of that information. The search engines gave us access to sources of information that we never would have considered. As a result, the common user was placed in the unenviable position of sorting out the viability of multiple, often conflicting, data sources. To our good (?) fortune, the algorithms in our internet applications like Google and Facebook and YouTube were more than happy to assist in that sorting process, albeit not without their thinly veiled self-serving intent. The algorithms were written with the simple goal of getting us to click one more time – to keep our attention focused on the screen (where more ads could flash in front of our eyes).

A lot has been written about the rabbit-hole effect of those algorithms and how they end up limiting and sculpting our sources of information, leading us to increasingly polarized opinions and partisan spirit. The impact in our societal lives (think the recent divisiveness regarding race and racism) and political lives (think the adversarial relationship between the congressional caucuses) is painfully evident. But I want to consider for a moment the assumption that allows the rabbit-hole effect to work – the assumption that I can be my own expert.

In the “good old days,” experts in the news business were recognized by longevity, consistency and training. The New York Times and Washington Post had an almost universally regarded gravitas because readers could point to a decades-long history of reliable reporting. Stories that enlightened the public had been uncovered and documented by trained reporters who had apprenticed under older stalwarts in the trade. Those stories were only brought to press after receiving the go-ahead from senior editors who had also been schooled by long years of experience. The aim was reporting that was both exhaustive and reliable – thus the NYT motto dating back to 1897: “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”

This pattern was not limited to the New York Times. In news rooms across the nation, there was a decided effort to maintain the standard of expertise in reporting. Whether a paper leaned right or left, the public in each community could point to real people on the editorial boards who were trained, not only in information gathering, but in information sorting. They were trained BS detectors. If a story didn’t pass the smell test, it wasn’t printed. From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, the pattern was repeated in cities and towns across the nation. Trained experts would filter the stories as best they could in order to provide the public with the most reliable information available. Those who disagreed with the reporting or who wanted to present the information from a different angle were respectfully afforded the venue of the letters to the editor.

This might sound like I’m simply trying to glorify the good old days, but that’s not my intent. What I want to emphasize is that the role of an expert in our information-heavy society is more important than ever. But with the democratization of information that the internet has afforded, that function has been at best curtailed, if not altogether eliminated. We, the public, foolishly assume that we have the ability to sort through the stories and discover which of them have the ring of truth. But that confidence is misplaced. We are easily misguided. Our confirmation bias leads us to search for, interpret and recall information that supports the beliefs we already possess, and the Facebook algorithms are all too happy to support that inclination.

What we need are true experts and more trust in their ability to guide us. But since each of us has become his or her own expert, our trust in experts has eroded. Up to this point I’ve labored to make my comments apolitical. But I feel compelled to make a political observation. It’s fascinating to note that the Trump presidency has in many respects been an “anti-expert” movement. Trump ran on the platform of not being an insider, not being a politician, not making his decisions based on institutional knowledge – in short, not being beholden to experts. He appointed many members of his cabinet because they were outsiders who would shake up the system. The argument was, our country would benefit from policies that defied institutional knowledge. And because we have become enamored with the idea that each of us can be our own expert, we were prone to accept the logic.

History will ultimately document the result of the anti-expert mentality in the Trump administration, but in the opinion of many, the results are already painfully evident. The distrust of the expert testimony of people like Dr.Anthony Fauci in regard to the Covid pandemic has led to grave missteps in public health policy. And the president’s criticism of his own appointed expert in election cybersecurity, Christopher Krebs, along with his denunciation of multiple secretaries of state, both Democrat and Republican, has led to a massive erosion of public trust in the bedrock of our democratic system: fair and free elections. According to polling data, an alarming 70% of Republican voters believe that there was substantial fraud in the November election, despite the expert testimony of multiple election officials to the contrary.

In the arenas of public health and election security and military strategy, to mention just a few, President Trump is his own expert. He seems to take delight in asserting that claim. During the 2016 election campaign he famously boasted, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.” After a tour of the CDC headquarters this spring, he exclaimed, “People are really surprised I understand this stuff. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.” His Tweets, where his unfiltered thoughts are most often revealed, are a steady drumbeat of “the experts got it wrong” and “listen to me, instead.” After Krebs, an appointed public servant and our leading expert in election security, declared that the November election was the most secure in our nation’s history, Trump tweeted, “Our 2020 Election, from poorly rated Dominion to a Country FLOODED with unaccounted for Mail-In ballots, was probably our least secure EVER!” Trump personifies the danger that results when the information playing field is leveled and each person becomes their own expert. In that case, the loudest voice rules. Or to put it in biblical terms, this is what happens in an era when “there was no King in the land. Every person did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

What should we do about it? The internet is not going away. And we certainly cannot count on Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey to be the arbiters of truth in a disinformation age. I want to plead for 1. a humble willingness to admit the danger of being my own expert, especially because my confirmation bias will inevitably lead me to believe what I already believe; and 2. a heightened level of trust in those who are genuine experts – those who have gone through the rigors of schooling, apprenticeship and experience that prepared them to speak knowledgeably as they seek to influence public policy. To repeat: we citizens must make the humble and deliberate choice to place trust in credible experts.

That is not an easy pathway. Trust is a delicate commodity. Trust makes us vulnerable to disappointment. Even sincerely motivated experts get it wrong. Beyond that, some people deliberately mislead. The question, “Who can I trust for reliable information and guidance?” must always be answered with a critical mindset. We do not choose willy-nilly. Ultimately, who we can trust is determined by the character of the communicator revealed over time. If we can trust the character of the messenger, it’s a fair bet that we can trust the message.

This is a big deal. Aristotle taught us that in the power of rhetoric to influence, three factors are predominant: logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos – the logic and reasoning in the message. Ethos – the character, credibility and trustworthiness of the communicator. Pathos – the emotional persuasiveness of the spokesperson. In our current cultural climate, expert power is being questioned. When logos is undervalued, it leaves room for pathos to hold sway. The person with the emotionally compelling message rules the day.

That is Trump’s specialty. His rhetoric has genuine power to shape public opinion and he devotes considerable energy into tearing down the public’s trust in the experts. What results is a dangerous spiral – as confidence in logos wanes, the power of pathos increases. At his rallies, Trump is famous for making dubious and often downright fraudulent truth claims, but the admiring crowd cheers him on, soaking in his words seemingly without critical reflection. This phenomenon is of course not limited to Republican campaign rallies. The power of pathos to prevail over ethos is not limited to the right. Liberals and radical left sympathizers also know the power of passionate speech that is only loosely bound to the truth.  

My plea is that we begin to more intentionally watch for demonstrations of character – or the lack thereof. Then use them as a gauge to determine who you listen to. Be alert for snarky speech and avoid snarky commentators. To be snarky means “to be critical or mocking in an indirect or sarcastic way.” Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the definition of a huge percentage of cable news. Consider taking a hiatus from the more obvious perpetrators, whether left or right.

I’ve been impressed over the past few months with the fact that trustworthy messengers are not that difficult to identify. For example, Secretary of State Raffensperger is clearly a credible witness in regard to the election results in Georgia. In the interviews he has given to the press, his character shines through, despite the president’s efforts to disparage him. To our great fortune, he is just one example among many.

Ultimately, there is good reason to trust our innate capacity to judge good character. That’s because we were created with a moral compass that points toward what is good (whether we choose to follow it or not). Characteristics such as humility, self-deference, compassion, empathy, sacrifice, courage and charity really do matter. And they really do make themselves evident. Our ability to discern their presence in the voices we listen to will be decisive in determining our ability or inability to discern the truth.