Resolve Fact-Based Sources of Conflict

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

When we published the first essays on factual conflicts in the early days of BI (early 2000s), the concern was people not understanding experts, the problem of "contradictory experts" (when different experts said different things) and experts and lay people not communicating facts properly. There was only a slight hint of intentionally distorted or outright incorrect or "fake" facts. Times certainly have changed!

We still have all the problems we talked about earlier, but they are magnified immensely because it is so hard to tell what "facts" are true, which are "fake," or even how to tell. "Fact checkers" have become politicized, so that some fact checkers claim progressive "facts" are true; others claim that conservative "facts" are true, when in actuality (I was going to say "in fact") both contain errors that are overlooked or buried for political reasons.

Making matters worse is the propaganda strategy that the Rand Corporation dubbed the "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model," first (perhaps) used by Russia but since copied by others. The strategy is to fill as many news channels (on all media) with junk information. As described by Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews in their 2016 article on the subject, the Russian "firehose of falsehood" has four distinct features:

high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”1

Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.

The goal is to so overwhelm fact checkers and ordinary information consumers that people decide that there is no way to tell what is true and what is false, so they might as well believe what they want to believe (or alternatively, not believe anything).

While these and other information distortion efforts have been much more successful than we would like, there are ways to address them. Knowing what sources are trustworthy and which are not is helpful. Looking at the motivations and biases of the source of the information is important. Understanding the difference between facts and values, and facts and opinions (now often muddled) is highly important. Using media bias charts (such as AllSides Media Bias Chart or Af Fontes Media Bias Chart) can also help news consumers rate the reliability of their sources of information.

When it comes to using information to make decisions, it is important to understand what science can and cannot determine (by understanding at least the basics of the scientific method). Data mediation and/or joint fact finding is, at times, useful to sort out contradictory facts.

In addition, decision makers need to understand that there are some irreducible uncertainties and risks, and they need to be aware of two opposing cognitive biases: the risky shift and the cautious shift, and carefully navigate between those two. And when decisions have to be made under conditions of uncertainty, the key is to be as flexible as possible, monitor outcomes, and be ready and willing to change course if the "facts" on which the decision was based turn out to be wrong, or change over time.

This section contains elaborations on these ideas and links to more articles on ways of countering information bias and resolving factual disputes.

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1Giorgio Bertolin, “Conceptualizing Russian Information Operations: Info-War and Infiltration in the Context of Hybrid Warfare,” IO Sphere, Summer 2015, p. 10.