Misinformation’s pernicious nature, compounded with constantly being inundated by its presence on Twitter specifically, has left me viewing misinformation as something extremely commonplace that must be evaded. As a journalism student, it’s particularly concerning that a lot of information I see on my Twitter feed can be chalked up to misinformation, or possibly even half-truths. We’re taught to vet information that we encounter online before sharing it, and to think twice about whether a joke or meme we want to post could shape the views of our followers or their perceptions of an event. But sometimes, it's easier said than done.
As I mentioned in one of my comments in this week’s discussion board, satirical misinformation campaigns like the “Birds Aren’t Real” conspiracy theory, which by-and-large are jokes to both the creators and to those who bear witness to its growth, are becoming more of a norm among younger Twitter users. I have seen so many instances where a Twitter user shares some fantastical and dubious claim, which oftentimes is not labeled as satirical, as a means for garnering retweets. I think a lot of Twitter users that are younger than 25 have been living in a social media ecosystem that is somewhat defined by the overbearing presence of so-called fake news, and that sharing false information has become a natural form of comedic relief. I have seen lots of tweets over the years that present a piece of misinformation as a satirical joke followed by the image below in a reply to the initial tweet:
Some of these misinformation-as-comedy tweets have become so solidified in the Twitter ecosphere that they’ve become formats for other users to use in their own ways. These are sometimes referred to as copypasta, an excerpt of text that gets regurgitated on message boards and social platforms verbatim. One primary example of this that I’ve seen was spurred by a bizarre — albeit somewhat funny — tweet that accused Anne Hathaway of cannibalism.
While the original author of this tweet deleted their post, the allegation was memorialized in a handful of articles written about it. This tweet has been replicated countless times to accuse various celebrities of the same thing in a joking way. I think the main reason this tweet percolated through Twitter is because there’s an innate humorous aspect of treating clearly false information as true. For me, at least, I don’t engage in spreading misinformation because I want to further an agenda or advance a creator’s goal, whether it be about attaining money or power. I engage with propaganda and feel prone to sharing it because it is a pervasive form of comedy online. I think a lot of my friends would agree with me as well.
Part of why I think this form of comedy has become so commonplace within a variety of online spaces is because it alleviates the anxiety and stress associated with having to navigate misinformation in its other forms. Spreading and engaging with satire — which still promotes falsehoods and often crosses the line between poking fun at a subject and causing harm — offers users a way to navigate the misinformation landscape while finding community through comedy. This is reflected in one of the findings from the study on motivations for sharing misinformation in six sub-saharan African countries. Researchers found that finding humor in misinformation offered subjects of the study a form of relief from the repeated onslaught of upsetting news and confusing narratives. The researchers wrote that “humor, gossip, and satire seem to provide a refuge for media users overwhelmed with serious or depressing news. And yet, with many saying they would post fake and fabricated stories about politicians to poke fun at those in power, we found no references to the idea that sharing misinformation is caused by a desire to create chaos.” Sometimes sharing misinformation is done because it's funny, but where do we draw the line between comedy and chaos?
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