Here we are, well into Autumn, and the colours are captivating, even though it was sad to say goodbye to summer. The only thing I dislike about Autumn is that Winter comes next. Christmas cards always portray a romantic image of winter in England: snow-covered rolling hills and small robins chirping on a red post box. Rosy-cheeked children are running around sporting woolly hats, scarves, and gloves, building a snowman with a carrot for a nose and a smile.
But here’s the thing: unless you live in Scotland or Yorkshire, the reality is so different; it’s freezing cold, grey, mostly raining, and very dark! And while I’m on a rant, who came up with bloody dry January?
Moving on, this month, I’m chatting about a very serious subject, disinformation and the fight against fake news, especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence. I know it’s hard to believe, but false information is deliberately and often covertly spread by planting rumours to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. It’s incredibly worrying because it poses serious risks for our society, the financial markets, and democracy. Disinformation is even more dangerous than misinformation, and it’s important to understand the difference.
Misinformation is just getting the facts wrong.
Disinformation is incorrect information deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.
You won’t be surprised to learn that disinformation is particularly targeted at significant events that greatly impact our society. For example, we saw a flurry of disinformation relating to COVID-19 during and in the wake of the pandemic, and unfortunately, now disinformation is rife about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Social media makes it easy for the superspreaders to get a voice. Even though some platforms say they are working on doing more, none have successfully removed all deliberately misleading content from their site.
Whilst the world continues to understand and try to address this issue, I think we can all play a role in stopping the spread of this dangerous trend. Social media is built for things to go viral, so let’s not help the superspreaders achieve their objective. In my humble opinion, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are the worst, and I hope you find these takeaways useful.
- Never like or share a post on social media without fact-checking.
- Look for the sources and remember that mainstream news is only as good as the sources they rely on.
- Consider the story’s agenda and the agenda of their writers or reporters
- View articles that play with emotion with caution. Unfortunately, scammers and propagandists know the power of emotion and use that tool in their work. Therefore, fact-checking is even more important on emotive subjects.
I started this month’s blog by talking about Autumn, and I’ll finish by moaning about the end of British Summer Time.
What exactly does Daylight Saving mean anyway? Apparently, turning the clocks forward in March and back in October aims to make better use of daylight by prolonging the amount of time we can spend outside during daylight hours. But does it work?
It’s generally assumed that our evenings are longer during Daylight Saving as the sun sets one hour later. But that’s not entirely true.
On the day after DST starts, the Sun rises and sets later on the clock, creating the illusion of a longer evening, but DST only affects our official time set by the authorities. It doesn’t alter the Sun’s course or sunrise and sunset times. I guess what DST does achieve is to change the time we use to schedule our daily routines, and that’s why we’ll all have our office blinds closed by mid-afternoon in December. It’s also “National How To Change The Microwave Clock Day”.
Thank you for reading and sharing my blog to raise autoimmune disease awareness. Winter is much more difficult for those of us who suffer in silence, well, in my case, not so silently.
Remember, your fake plants will die if you don’t pretend to water them 😊
Until next time xx
Living-your-best-life 