Everyone's heard of #FakeNews. Before it was called fake news, it was called #disinformation. The goal is to cause confusion and chaos, so people don't know who to trust or what to believe. THREAD 1 #RussianCollaborators #Propaganda #FridayFeeling #FridayMotivation 
Disinformation promotes so much misleading & false info that people lose faith, give up. Disinformation is designed to weaken the enemy by discrediting it with lies and "leaks" of damaging "info". Hint: the enemy is us, the resistance. 2 washingtonpost.com/news/worldview…
Joseph #Stalin is credited with inventing the term "dezinformatsiya", defined in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia as "dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended to mislead public opinion". 3 #ColdWar #Propaganda #Lies #misinformation
This past week, 4 of Washington's top experts on #Russia discussed their plan to combat #disinformation at a forum organized by the Atlantic Council. All agreed that Western democracies need to find "concrete solutions" to the problem of disinformation. 4
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It's hard to measure precisely, but #disinformation has been effective. It's crucial that we talk about this tactic and educate people about it & how to spot it. 6 journalism.org/2016/12/15/man… #TruthRevealed #FactsMatter #FactChecker #FactFriday
So how do you spot disinformation? There are a couple of things to look for. Do your best to educate yourself about #bots, #Trolls and #sockpuppets. These are used to amplify disinfo & make the bots and trolls look like they have many real followers. 7 medium.com/data-for-democ…
Some people create multiple sock puppet accounts and use tools like TweetDeck to tweet from the sock puppet accounts. This makes it look like many people are agreeing with them, making supportive comments & retweeting their content. As Twitter purges bots, those RTs disappear. 8
The single most important thing is to USE CRITICAL THINKING. Question what you read, what people say. Ask for sources, then evaluate those sources - are they biased (left or right)? Neutral? Reputable? Check a couple of reputable sources and compare information. 9 #accurate
People WILL target the resistance & try to discredit us. That means we're doing something right & making a difference. Observe & evaluate - what are their motives? Who do they associate with? What do they do most - cause drama, or educate, inform, promote candidates?
If in doubt, ask others. Get the opinion of trusted, knowledgeable friends. Use @snopes and @factcheckdotorg to see if "news" someone is sharing is accurate. Do a little detective work, and then share what you find. That way, we all help each other. #PSA
