The misinformation discourse is a distraction

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In economics, going from a concentrated market with a handful of dominant players to a highly competitive market of small players is generally considered a good thing. But when the products, these players target different sets of consumers are alternative versions of reality as we know it, it is not that clear that the company benefits.

Despite all the attention paid to disinformation, a close accent on objective lies distracts us from a much more fundamental change. The emerging democratic risk is not as long as people believe that false things – they always have it. Is that they no longer believe the same things as others, false or other.

If it seems overestimated, try a recent example. In January, after Elon Musk drew new attention to the British grooming gang scandal via its X social media platform, Almost half of the voters of the British reform He said they had heard of history in the news in recent days, against one of the voters of plowing or Lib Dem out of 10.

It is not so much a question of whether particular information is true or false, as to whether different people encounter the same information.

In the past, established media organizations have largely followed the same new program, within national limits. But in an increasingly border and exploded information environment, the former guards and norms are increasingly bypassed.

This led to the bifurcation Online publication platforms, including social media, in spaces openly right and left, where different agendas abound. As a double citizen of X and Bluesky, there are clear differences in the subjects I see on the two platforms.

Here is another weakness of disinformation discourse: Whether it is only a problem on a “side”. Research reveals that if the American conservatives are on average more likely to believe false declarations on climate change, liberal are more likely to believe false declarations on nuclear energy. Other studies Among the United States, those who have gone to the university are not better judges of veracity of the news than those who only have secondary studies.

I do not underline this to criticize a particular group. Completely the opposite. I do it to emphasize that most people – on the left, on the right, more educated – simply do not question every statement they meet.

Humans are efficiency maximists, looking for shortcuts on each occasion. The truth is that the vast majority of us will never invest the time to verify the facts or to assess all the information we consume. If it seems plausible and comes from a source that we do not actively bewareIt’s pretty good.

Combine this heuristic with the explosion of Information providerswhich tend to operate in the pockets of an unprecedented media landscape fragmented, and you will get interesting results.

While the evidence on the echo rooms and the filter bubbles were mixed To date, most research predates very recent change to Finely set real -time recommendation algorithms.

By analyzing the data of the British electoral study, I found that the people who had obtained their news from Tiktok were more likely to become supporters of Reform UK between 2021 and 2024 than those who did not do it, even after having checked age, sex and level of education.

In particular, the model is much stronger in men than women, in accordance with the idea that different groups now inhabit very distinct political information and political environments – even within the same platforms.

Likewise, in Germany, the Strong presence of Tiktok AFD and Die Linke believe that some have strengthened their support for young men and women respectively, contributing to a Gap between the sexes Between the voting patterns of young Germans in the elections of last month.

The link between this fragmentation and democratic dysfunction appears wherever you look at. America Polarized media ecosystem is equal to much broader political divisions than in countries with more coherent media landscapes. Longitudinal studies find Divided media generates polarized policy.

And looking through age groups, young people, whose sources of information differ most clearly from previous generations and one of the other (in terms of young men and young women), now display the widest ideological fracture on many measures.

THE disinformation speech Will undoubtedly scold, but as the adolescent stuck on the screen, it lacks the wider context.

John.burn-murdoch@ft.com,, @jburnmurdoch