The misinformation virus

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this online age, the internet is a global megaphone, billions of messages amplified and shared, even when they're false. Fake science spreads faster than the truth ever could, unhindered by national boundaries. Mainstream scientists are struggling to respond. The science journalist and writer, Angela Saini, is fascinated by how bad ideas spread and in this programme she investigates the very real impact of online scientific misinformation. From the dangerous anti-vaccination campaigns to those who deny the reality of climate change, she assesses the scale and extent of the threat we face. And she discovers the sinister world of deliberate disinformation where an army of bots and trolls work to sow dissent and confusion in the online space. Producer: Fiona Hill

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	At the birth of the internet, a dream was born that all the information in the world would be at our fingertips.
0:47.0	What's more, thanks to social media, every person with an internet connection would also have a voice. In this democratic marketplace
0:55.2	of ideas, none of us need ever go, unheard or uninformed. Well, that was the dream. The reality has turned out a little different.
1:06.0	So you go online and you Google aliens exist, for example,
1:10.0	and you will find tons of evidence everywhere from Professor So-and and so and Dr So and all kinds of people and tons of books and YouTube videos and it becomes easy to then surround yourself in what seems like evidence that validate your beliefs.
1:24.0	My name's Angela Saini, I'm a science journalist and an author.
1:27.8	My work focuses on why and how bad ideas spread. What concerns me is that in the internet age this happens more than ever.
1:37.0	Pseudoccience, even the notion that the earth is flat, attracts millions of followers online. What's more, this online misinformation
1:47.0	isn't always an accident. There's also people sewing deliberate disinformation.
1:54.0	In this program for Discovery on the BBC, I'll be exploring how the online dream is turning into a nightmare,
2:02.0	one in which the very architecture of the web is feeding the problem.
2:07.0	Platforms realize that the things which were bubbling up and which their algorithms
2:14.9	that optimises serve up were actually striking, unusual, worrying, shocking content, which
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