Disinformation: The Number One Threat to Our Democracy and the Globe
While the word “disinformation” did not show up in the English language until the early stages of World War II, the concept,or practice, is centuries old. In Ancient Rome, Octavian used rumors about Mark Anthony and Cleopatra to help win public opinion to his side, apparently using poetry and coins as the mode of dissemination. 1800 years later, the printing press allowed for a more efficient means of spreading falsehoods. And in our new age of an interconnected world and social media specifically, the cost, ease, and reach is astounding.
While using the digital realm to spread falsehoods did not start in 2016, the US presidential election brought the issue into the spotlight, with a clear connection between a foreign country playing a part in creating and amplifying disinformation in order to help push the election towards one candidate. Since then, the efforts both domestically and globally have increased with countries such as Russia and China being at the forefront of these efforts.
As COVID-19 spread across the globe, the proliferation of misinformation was rampant, which in the United States led to a staggering increase in hate crimes, as well as a disbelief in the severity of the situation. This then led to an ultimate mistrust of scientific solutions, namely the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. The real-world effects of misinformation are hard to miss. The United States is about to hit 1 million deaths due to COVID and, while misinformation is not to blame for 100% of those deaths, it is clear that vaccine hesitancy and the inability for the world to end the pandemic quicker is responsible for many of them.
On February 24, 2022, the pandemic was joined by a land war on the Eurasian Continent when Russia invaded Ukraine. While not directly related to the pandemic, there is a similarity that is worth noting. According to James Andrew Lewis from the Center for Strategic International Studies, Russia is responsible for about a third of the fake information around COVID. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Emilio Ferrara, PhD, associate director for Applied Data Science and Undergraduate programs at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication has been tracking new twitter accounts. They found over 650,000 new accounts that have been created since the start of the war and focus exclusively on the war. These accounts were responsible for almost five million tweets on the topic through March 30th. This is not to put the blame squarely on Twitter; we also know that Facebook is a source of much of the misinformation, albeit the platform makes it harder to pinpoint exact numbers of accounts and what misinformation is being spread.
While Kyiv is just under 5,000 miles from Washington, DC, these misinformation efforts around the world are having a clear effect on the American public. Indeed, earlier this month we started asking one of our national panels of American adults how much of Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine was based on legitimate concerns and how much was based on other factors. Overall, Americans feel it was more about non-legitimate reasons by a 2:1 margin. However, 75% of the American public believes that there was at least some legitimacy to Russia’s decision.
These views were not universally held across the board. In fact, when we look at the demographics of those who are most likely to believe that Russia had legitimate reasons for the invasion, we find that the strongest belief of this position is among unvaccinated Americans, those under 45, as well as Black and Hispanic Americans. Indeed, those under 45 give more than two times the level of legitimacy compared to those over 65, and Black and Hispanic Americans give 1.6 times the level of legitimacy compared to white Americans.
While not directly related to the war itself, we also know the self-reported vaccine status of the majority of members of our panel. In a similar pattern, we find that the highest concentration of unvaccinated members are under 45, Hispanic, and/or Black.
If we take the view that Russia having legitimate reasons for invading Ukraine is based on propaganda and also take the view that vaccine hesitancy is also based on propaganda (and we do), this overlap is likely more than a coincidence. Further, according to Pew Research, the groups with the highest concentration of social media users: Under 49, Black, and Hispanic Americans. If the theory holds that these are all connected, we should see differences in opinions based on these demographic factors.
Overall, unvaccinated Americans give Russian legitimacy a five-point higher allocation when asked to compare legitimate Russian concerns versus other reasons (i.e., Propaganda) for invading Ukraine. Those under 45 give a high level of allocation for the pro-Russia position regardless of vaccine status (2-point difference), as do white college educated men (3-point difference between those vaccinated and unvaccinated). The numbers start to diverge significantly when we look at white non-college men (12-point difference), those over 65 (13-point difference), and Black Americans (16-point difference).
Another question we posed to our panel is how much of the help for Ukraine should come from the United States and how much should come from the European Union. Overall, Americans feel that both entities should be assisting, with a lean towards the EU taking a bigger share. In this question, we see differences between our groups of focus, but the differences are small.
We found that unvaccinated Americans had a higher concentration of those who do not feel the US should be involved, but the other groups we are focusing on did not have numbers that stood out.
When we put a more direct line of question to our panelists: support for blocking the sale of Russian oil, we see a strong level of support overall for this action. Indeed, 52% of Americans strongly support the US taking this action (67% support overall), and almost identical results for the EU taking these steps.
The same level of support exists for a broader embargo on Russian goods. Indeed, more than half of Americans strongly support a wider embargo, with another 16% supporting the approach, albeit less strongly.
When we dive into these numbers a little deeper, we see a familiar and alarming pattern: strong support for the US blocking the sale of Russian oil and embargoes on other Russian products in public at large; however, the groups where we see the largest levels of disinformation taking hold have a much different opinion on these issues.
Just over a third of Americans under 45 support sanctions and the blocking of oil sales. The numbers are slightly higher among Black and the unvaccinated but both groups are still far below that of the public at large.
Further, 41% of Americans under the age of 45 who are vaccinated strongly support sanctions. Among the same age group that are unvaccinated, the number drops to 18%. Among Black Americans, the strong support among those vaccinated is 47%, while among unvaccinated Black Americans it is 21%. For blocking the sale of Russian oil, the pattern holds for those under 45 (42% strong support among those vaccinated vs. 18% among those who are unvaccinated) and among Black Americans (39% and 21%, respectively).
We know that Russians have been one of the biggest promoters of disinformation in the US for more than six years now, and that Russian disinformation has shifted to a pro-Russian war stance. We also know that the biggest users of social media are showing strong signs of vaccine hesitancy, and they also tend to agree with Russian talking points. The fact that views on the balance of EU vs. US involvement showed little difference in these groups, while the direct buying of Russian propaganda and support for economic penalties on Russia showed stark differences further bolsters our hypothesis. If the purveyors of disinformation are not focused on a specific topic, there is less likely to be a movement in opinion. At the same time, if our hypotheses were completely wrong then we should not see this much of a difference in the question of EU/US balance, since the pro-Russian view should hold across all of the questions being asked.
Disinformation is one of the biggest threats facing this country and the globe. If Russia is this effective in the invasion of a sovereign nation, there is little that would not be on the table in terms of their ability to shape minds among people outside their borders. We must start to act immediately before it is too late (fingers crossed we haven’t crossed that threshold yet). This is not just a US problem, but one the entire globe must work together to thwart.