Introduction
Disinformation has been spreading like wildfire in Australia’s democracy. How can we combat it?
Watch this video of a forum featuring 3 case studies of disinformation. This forum was hosted by PEN Melbourne and NonFiction Lab on the 15 August 2024 in Naarm/Melbourne.
It featured the Legal Director from the Human Rights Law Centre, Alice Drury, in conversation with three experts who examined how disinformation is operating across the world. The case studies were:
- Australia and the organised distribution of disinformation during The Voice Referendum by Sushi Das (Associate Director, RMIT FactLab)
- Israel and the current war in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Yousef Alreemawi (Averroes Centre of Arab Culture)
- China, in relation to its own citizens by Dr Biao Chen (Independent Chinese PEN Centre)
…alot of false information [related to The Voice Referendum] was harmful … it was harmful to democratic processes because it eroded trust in the actual voting system. Second it was harmful to the social cohesiveness of society because people were pitted against each other based on inaccurate information and this fuelled a polarised national debate. – Sushi Das
Sometimes disinformation simply aims to cause confusion, uncertainty and chaos. Why?
Because this is the kind of environment that creates unease and fearfulness…and fear leads to mistrust in just about everything – government, media, science and each other. This fear and uncertainty feeds into the idea of a post truth world where people end up relying more on what they emotionally feel to make decisions in their lives rather than relying on factual evidence based information to make decisions. – Sushi Das
Watch Video
Transcript coming soon!
Explore Further
- How To: Dealing with Disinformation
- Skill Up: Learn to Identify Disinformation with Games and Courses
- Disinformation 101
- Disinformation and 7 Common Forms of Information Disorder
- When Facts Fail: How We Fight Misinformation
- PEN International
- RMIT FactLab
- Human Rights Law Centre
- Countering Disinformation Collection