How do we find truth in media?

Why do cameras not tell us what we think they do, whether that's from war photographers or police officers?

What is important about the history of pamphleteering?

And what does any of this have to do with agriculture in the USSR,

or book banning in America, or dog whistles, or phone apps that only tell facts? Why is it so hard

to understand the viewpoints of millions of brains at once.

Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman.

I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford,

and in these episodes, we sail deeply into our three-pound universe to understand why and how our lives look the way they do.

Today's episode is about truth in media.

What is the truth?

We all know about fake news,

and we've all been living with concern about the ease with which misinformation and disinformation spreads.

We see this in social media feeds that become social echo chambers. We see this when people are likely to believe information that confirms their existing beliefs, and they're less likely to be exposed

to opposing viewpoints. People generally seek information from sources that agree with them.

And therefore, they're not even aware of the full picture. That can be dangerous as it leads

people to making decisions based on false information sometimes.

So, against this background, I started receiving calls from various academic colleagues back in 2020.

And they told me they wanted to submit a grant to the National Science Foundation to get funding to figure

out or propose how to get truth back into the media. And they were asking me if I would be a part

of their grant. Specifically, they were worried about this spread of misinformation and disinformation.

They saw so many tweets that had assertions in them.

...