Navigating Information in an Election Year

Midterm elections are coming up on Tuesday, November 3. As election day approaches, we’re all increasingly overwhelmed with political messaging from TV, social media, snail mail, and more. How can you tell what’s real and what’s fake? Here are some quick tips to help you navigate the flood of information:

Questions to Ask - The Five Ws:

When you encounter election information in the wild, perhaps one of the most useful things you can do is to pause and ask yourself some questions.

Who?

- - Who is making this claim?
  - What are their qualifications - are they a subject matter expert?
  - Do they have a known political bias?
  - Who might disagree with this claim, and why?
  - How does the claim differ or align with what other trusted sources are saying?

What?

- - What are they saying?
  - What's the context? If a political ad features a quick soundbite, what is the full quote?
  - Pay close attention to extreme claims about political opponents, or promises that sound too good to be true. Is there enough evidence to support the claim? Is there any evidence that might disprove the claim?

When?

- - Is the information recent and up to date?
  - Is there a historical record that supports the claim?

Where?

- - Where is the information coming from - a local, state, national, or international level?
  - How does proximity to an issue affect the accuracy of the claim?

Why?

- Why is someone making a claim?
- Is there a reason someone would want you to believe this is true?
- Who stands to benefit from it? Are they gaining your money, time, or attention? Are they asking you to take an action on their behalf? Does believing their claim give them more power or social influence?
- Alternatively: why would someone want you to believe a claim is untrue? Does it threaten a convenient narrative? Does it make things harder for someone if you acknowledge a difficult truth?
- How does this information make you feel? Does someone benefit from appealing to your emotions? How does your information source want you to feel?
- Video is increasingly popular on social media, and it can be especially compelling and immersive. However, it doesn’t exist spontaneously. Someone always chose to hit record on the camera, or spent time animating a short, or input a prompt into an AI video generator. Why did they choose to record this moment? Or, why did they choose to invent something with AI?

Bias

Our brains take in a ton of information every day, and we need to process it quickly to function and make sense of the world. To do this, our brains make quick cognitive shortcuts based on our experiences and messaging from the people around us: X + Y = Z. These quick, automatic judgments can be called bias.

Sometimes this is helpful: if you had to manually evaluate every single thing in your life, that would take up a lot of time. We all know first impressions can matter a lot, whether it’s at a job interview, finding a friendly face in a new environment, or recognizing danger. It can even be helpful when figuring out public transit in a new city, buying new clothes, or choosing a new food you might like to eat - I usually do X, or I usually like Y, so I should choose those things now. Having cognitive shortcuts uses your past experience to speed things up so you’re not stuck in decision paralysis all the time.

However, because we’re only human, sometimes those quick automatic judgments are untrue or unfair. They might be based in false information or stereotypes. When we’re making shortcuts based on bad information, this can cause a lot of harm, and hurt ourselves and the people around us. That’s why it’s important to slow down sometimes and double check ourselves.

Everyone has biases. Just because something feels true, doesn’t always mean that it is. The truth is often messy and nuanced. Being aware of our biases, and recognizing biases in others, can help us recognize the gaps in our knowledge and get closer to the truth.

Elections have consequences for our every-day lives, because they determine how we collectively want to live - what kinds of laws make sense for our communities, what kinds of values we want to support with our tax money, and what kinds of leaders represent our best interests. During an election year, and anytime there are high stakes, the best thing we can do is to think critically and mitigate our biases, so we can make thoughtful, informed decisions.

Artificial Intelligence - AI:

Humans aren’t the only thing with biases. Because AI is coded and created by humans, it often absorbs some of our human biases as well. Additionally, AI can make factual mistakes, and may sometimes present untrue information as fact. When researching election issues or candidates, be careful with automatic summaries and other AI recommendations.

You can use the same 5 Ws as you would with a human source of information. Who trained the AI system, and why? What databases is it pulling from, and is that information reliable? Is the information up-to-date? Where is this information coming from? Why is AI incentivized to show you the information that it does?

AI can also be used to intentionally spread misinformation. As AI capabilities quickly advance, people can generate extremely realistic photos and videos of real people saying or doing things they never did in real life. AI can also be used to create fake news articles or websites, polluting our information atmosphere. It can be really hard to tell what’s a real source and what’s just made up. When in doubt, fact check: do other trusted sources align with what you’re seeing?

Scams:

You may also run into an increase in scams, whether online, through the mail, or through the telephone, with people pretending to be government officials or other election-related organizations. Scammers often create fake emergencies to overwhelm you, so you don't have time to slow down and think about the warning signs of the interaction. Watch out for these red flags:

Urgency: You’re being asked to do something right now, with threats of major consequences if you don’t do as you’re asked.

Asking for Money: You may be asked to send money or gift cards to unexpected places.

Asking for Personal Information: You may be asked for sensitive details like your SSN or credit card details.

Changes in Tone or Grammar: If someone is impersonating someone you know and trust, you may notice uncharacteristic changes in the message’s tone or grammar.

Government webpages usually end in .gov, rather than .com or .org. When looking for election information, double check that you’re on official websites, and not impersonating ones. When in doubt, you can always call or email the organization’s office through the contact information on their website (not found in the AI summary, which may be false) to verify if a call, email, or mailer was legit.