Breaking News: Fake News is Out, Says New Jersey

Do Covid-19 vaccines contain injectable traceable microchips? Is Elvis still alive? Was Planet Nibiru headed straight for Earth? Social media has allowed questions like these to circulate unchecked, deceiving uninformed users and manipulating their behavior. 

Thankfully, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is willing to fight the good fight. On January 4, New Jersey became the first state to require K-12 public schools to teach media literacy in order to combat misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. First introduced in 2016—and reintroduced every year since then—the law finally received bipartisan approval last fall. In a time of political divisions and polarization, this new media literacy law is more important than ever.

But what are misinformation, disinformation, and fake news, and how do they impact our democracy? People often confuse these terms or use them interchangeably, but understanding the distinction is an important tool in fighting false information. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), misinformation is false or inaccurate information, an attempt in good-faith to tell the truth. Misinformation becomes disinformation when it deliberately intends to mislead. Disinformation under the guise of news reporting is often called fake news. 

In a healthy democracy, citizens rely on the free flow of reliable information to make decisions on social and political issues. Having access to a diverse range of verified information sources is key to being civically engaged, as citizens use this information to form judgments on the social and economic issues that inform their political preferences—and their votes. 

Due to their lack of strong verification systems, however, social media platforms allow anybody to pose as an expert, including those without complete understanding of an issue or those who aim to mislead others. These so-called experts can reach millions of people. In fact, they already have: claims that Barack Obama was born outside of the U.S. were made to hurt his presidential candidacy; conspiracy theories that Covid-19 vaccines contain injectable trackable microchips aimed to foster distrust in government; and viral videos containing disinformation about monkeypox in order to spread homophobic sentiments have all gained traction as a result of social media. The list is disturbingly long.

Social media posts, with their thousands of comments and reactions, can become echo chambers in which a user’s informational intake becomes overwhelmed by a singular perspective. Without recognizing that they aren’t getting the full picture, ordinary citizens can easily fall victim to disinformation and fake news.

The rapid increase of online disinformation and fake news is dangerous to our democracy for three reasons. First, people rely on social media to get their news. The PEW Research Center finds that young Americans under 30 trust information from social media almost as much as they do information from national news outlets. Second, once accepted, false information is very difficult to correct. For example, despite authorized investigations confirming that allegations of electoral fraud during the 2020 election were false, 36 percent of Americans still do not believe that President Joe Biden legitimately won the election. Among Republicans, that number increases to 78 percent. Third, people who believe in disinformation can take action and pose a tangible threat to our communities. For example, during his re-election campaign in 2020, former President Donald Trump disseminated false claims among his supporters that the election was hijacked. His supporters, under the impression that said election had been rigged, decided to attack the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. 

This issue becomes more pervasive when it is not just random users but elected officials who deliberately manipulate the public. Government officials’s accounts are not only verified, but are also guaranteed to reach large audiences, so citizens take these claims even more seriously, making them even more difficult to counter. Fact checkers at The Washington Post reported that Trump, an avid Twitter user, made 30,573 false or misleading claims over the course of his four years as president. Research shows that citizens take cues from high-profile members of society, including elected officials, to form their policy views and preferences. To make things worse, attacks on reputable media sources like The New York Times or The Washington Post weaken their abilities to act as fact checkers and watchdogs of politicians and elected officials. These sentiments leave citizens vulnerable to believing disinformation regarding policy issues, such as healthcare of foreign policy, that affect our daily lives. Unaware of the true implications of our vote, we unknowingly enable incompetent people to take office. Take George Santos, the representative for New York’s third congressional district as an example. Using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Santos lied about a multitude of his qualifications, such as his college degree, his occupation, and even his religion—and, with his false persona, won over opponent Robert Zimmerman with  54 percent to 46 percent. Santos’ lies bring into question the true representation of the 54 percent of the constituents who voted for him in Long Island and Queens. How can our democracy stay intact if we do not know what we are voting for?

The new New Jersey  law on information literacy will help students recognize which sources and news outlets are credible. It aims to set learning standards that improve research methods and literacy skills by helping students differentiate between news and opinion, primary and secondary sources, as well as learning how to access peer-reviewed print and digital library resources. The NJ Department of Education will implement an information literacy curriculum, compiled by librarians and teachers that includes lessons on digital, visual, media and textual and technological literacy. In addition, the law requires that public hearings must take place before the State Board of Education adopts the new media literacy learning standards. 

The new law adds to New Jersey’s efforts to fight disinformation and fake news. During the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Jersey launched a disinformation portal run by the state’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. Other states, including California, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, and Connecticut, have also launched state-run websites intended to fight disinformation on issues like Covid-19, elections, monkeypox, deepfake technology, and the war in Ukraine, among others. These state-run sites are reactive and top-down initiatives—which, while effective, are only for the short-term. In sharp contrast, teaching information literacy is a sustainable, bottom-up effort that will empower students to identify disinformation and resist fake news. Equipped with media literacy skills, New Jersey citizens will be poised to think for themselves and cast an educated vote.