Disinformation is a serious problem. The deliberate spread of incorrect or misleading information has a real, practical, negative effect on our lives. Such as Brexit. Johnson. Trump. Tate. Farage.
Misinformation helps create these negative effects too, though it often contributes to the problem by accident rather than design. Whereas disinformation is the preserve of bad actors, misinformation is something any of us can accidentally spread. Misinformation on top of disinformation means it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what’s real.
So what can we do about it?
Well, I believe the answer has been partly uncovered by one man and his plastic soldiers.
Warhammer YouTuber Matt Ward (no, not that one) made a video about his Lamenters, a less common faction of the setting’s super soldier Space Marines. And many commenters celebrated this video by posting the Lamenters’ battle cry: “For those we cherish, we die in glory.”
But Matt was pretty sure he had read everything Games Workshop had published about the Lamenters. And he’d never come across this battle cry.
So he did a little digging. And there was no official source for this battle cry. So how did something that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny spread across the Internet like a runny nose in a nursey? Long story short:
It is just something the fandom cooked up and a lot of people have just accepted it as fact because it sounds about right.
Matt Ward
Which is kind of how misinformation works in a nutshell.
We’re inundated with information every day. The Internet freed information, but it was akin to pulling your finger out the dike and sending a tidal wave of data across the human race. It’s exhausting. And the brain is famously lazy.
So when we come across a piece of information, the brain prefers to use shortcuts to decide what to do with it, rather than do the hard work of verification. So the brain looks for trust indicators: how much we like and trust the source, whether it matches what we already know, whether it sounds plausible to us.
In short, we simply rely on our judgement as to whether someone is true or not.
Which was precisely what Matt found when he dug into the Lamenters’ battle cry. It had turned up on a dedicated Warhammer wiki (seemingly trustworthy source) and it seemed plausible (it fit with what was known about the Lamenters).
Lamenters fans used their judgement to decide the battle cry sounded legit. The problem is that our judgement sucks.
“We only use 10% of our brain.”
“Brexit will free up £350 million a week for the NHS.”
“The Lamenters’ battle cry is ‘For those we cherish, we die in glory.’”
None of these things are true. They can be fact-checked in mere minutes. But they’re plausible. They feel right. And when we fail to make sure it is right, we add to the misinformation problem.
There’s no blame here. We’re all guilty of it. Even me. Even Matt Ward.
I probably wouldn’t have thought to check this had I not functionally already done most of the research for a different video.
Matt Ward
Because, yes, sometimes that fact-check is straightforward. But sometimes it’s much, much harder.
Sometimes you have to follow a trail of breadcrumbs and dig out the truth from under the tide of people echoing the half-truth. Matt Ward had to trawl the Internet and dig into wiki edits just to find the origin point for a sentence shouted by toy soldiers.
Other times, the trail of breadcrumbs has been pecked at by the birds of entropy; deleted webpages, out-of-print books, hard-to-find publications. The truth is impossible to figure out, and you’re left unable to find out what’s true and what isn’t.
And the Dark Mechanicum behind generative AI is making things worse.
Our judgement might suck. But at least we have it.
Whereas genAI doesn’t even have that. And once you know how genAI works, you realise it is literally designed to sound right, not be right. It has been built on the fundamental principle of the misinformation problem.
Which is why the misinformation machine that is genAI is already flooding the Internet with nonsense. Google recommended putting glue on pizza. Grok accused NBA star Klay Thompson of throwing bricks through windows. ChatGPT invented six court cases (and earned the lawyer who cited them a $5,000 fine).
It’s already hard enough to discern the truth from well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) humans. When we add word lottery machines to the mix?
So what’s the answer? An Inquisition that can put a bolt pistol to the head of misinformation heresy?
Wouldn’t work. Quashing misinformation fuels conspiracy theories (“they won’t let the truth out!”) Instead, I’m going to commit a terrible cliche and quote an Ancient Greek.
But I’m 41 and it’s my first offence. So I’m pretty sure you can let me off.
Turns out Euripides has a pretty good answer to the misinformation problem:
“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”
Except Euripedes didn’t say this. The quote is widely attributed to him but he never actually said it. But hey, it’s good advice, so let’s just roll with it.
Question everything. Not in a “trust nothing” kind of way. But with childlike curiosity. The kind of curiosity that asks what are clouds? Why do they rain? Are the dinosaurs all really dead? Where does the Lamenters’ battle cry come from? Question the things you think you know and the things you’d never think to question. And question the claims people make.
Be curious. And then learn something. From someone trustworthy that cites trustworthy sources. Then see if the claim is supported by someone else you also trust. Fact checkers like Snopes and Full Fact are pretty useful bookmarks.
Answer nothing sounds like advice for a politician before stepping into an interview. But it’s more about not stopping as soon as you learn something. Because, yes, you learnt something. But you probably didn’t learn everything. You don’t know the answer. There’s always room to question things a little further.
And, in my hubris, I’m going to add one more thing to not-Euripides’ advice: cite your own sources.
Everywhere.
On your website, in your emails, in your texts and Slacks and DMs. If you’re sharing information, make sure you also share where you got that information from. The reasons are threefold:
This sounds like a lot of work. But it’s not really. Being curious about the world and learning about it is a gift. Citing your sources doesn’t have to take a long time. I’ve often found it’s as straightforward as going into my browser history and running a quick search. I’ll also try to save sources when I come across something I suspect I’ll want to reference again.
Because citing your sources works. It’s exactly how Matt sorted out the toy soldier problem.
We don’t have to give in to the constant barrage of misinformation we face every single day. Even if we can’t convince everybody, we can push back against it.
Matt Ward
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.
Matt questioned where the Lamenters’ battle cry came from.
He learnt something about its origins.
He shared those learnings, acknowledging there were still probably things he didn’t know about.
He cited his sources.
And now the fan wiki that first shared the fake battle cry has removed it. Call it a 28mm victory in the war against misinformation.
It’s a war that isn’t ending any time soon. After all, the Lamenters can tell you from experience that, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
But maybe an old battle cry can turn the tide a little.
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.
And cite your sources.
