A wonderful panel discussion about understanding how to keep ahead of the lies, deepfakes and fake news.
Mara Bun led a fascinating panel discussion with:
- John Quiggin - Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland
- Julianne Schultz - Professor Emeritus Griffith University
- Murray Galbraith - Multidisciplinary Designer, Syntropic Studios
- Joshua Smith - Communication Lecturer at CG Spectrum
Mara kicked off the session with some examples of misinformation campaigns about how wind turbines kill whales. Guess what they don't, but it hasn't stopped some shady fossil fuel alliances from initiating campaigns to stop these developments.
The Labour "Mediscare" election campaign was an example of using fear this time in politics.
John Quiggin illustrated how misinformation campaigns have long been used, and once misinformation has impacted it's difficult to change people's minds with correct information. We need to incorporate information providence into our thinking when evaluating news, and we need to be self-correcting when we discover misinformation.
Julianne Schultz discussed how local Australian media is dramatically weaker with 80% of advertising revenue going to the big US tech platforms Google and Meta. These new foreign media platforms are also focused on an attention-based economy which is incentivised to drive attention through emotive fear-oriented content. This is a serious issue for functioning democracies which need a diversity of local media and journalists to provide a base level of reputable information.
Murray Galbraith provided us with examples of how companies like Apple are using AI to provide us with better images, but will soon be using AI to analyse everything we do. He pointed out if you are having an emotive response to some media content, this is the right time to check why this is because it is probably designed to push you somewhere.
Joshua Smith talked about political media safeguards being developed overseas, but unfortunately in Australia, little progress has been made for Truth in Political Advertising.
Josh also shared a really useful "SLAM DUNK" technique he uses with students to handle misinformation.
There were some great audience questions and discussions with the panel.
Special thanks to our panellists and the Currumbin RSL team for helping host this great event.