Understanding Misinformation vs Disinformation | Need to Know with Dr. Nsenga Burton

BEP Narrator: 00:00:02

A Black Executive Perspective now presents Need to Know

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with the award winning hyphenated Dr.

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Nsenga Burton.

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Dr.

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Burton.

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What do we need to know?

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Dr. Nsenga Burton: Good afternoon

and welcome to Need to Know with Dr.

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Nsenga Burton.

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I am Dr.

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Nsenga.

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I'm happy to be talking to you

today about a very important topic.

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I want to discuss with you the difference

between misinformation and disinformation.

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Why?

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Because both are important.

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Both have a Great impact and

influence in society on society.

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And it's important that we

engage our critical thinking

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skills in order to discern.

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And that's to tell the difference

between things that are fake

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and things that are not.

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All right.

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So misinformation can, you know, it

doesn't always have to be malicious.

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It's just someone just misstating

facts, um, you know, or saying

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that something is factual and

it's not having information wrong.

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You know, like somebody might say, Oh, You

know, yeah, I heard Nsenga went to Penn

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State, you know, when I actually went to

UPenn, like this misinformation, right?

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Some of those things are unintentional,

people get confused or what have you.

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So misinformation isn't always

deleterious or doesn't mean that people

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are trying to, lie, outright lie.

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Um, but you know, it can be harmful

because, um, sometimes it can change the

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ways in which people think about, um,

topics, people, places, things, um, you

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know, if they have incorrect information.

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So you always want to be mindful

that you have your facts straight.

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And when the way that you know that you

have your facts straight is to really

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listen, pay closely, pay close attention.

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Um, watch things for yourself, you know,

get away from the soundbites, right?

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Um, so for example, the recent soundbite

of Kamala Harris saying, um, you

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know, I'm speaking at a rally, you

know, everybody can meme it to death.

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They can recount it to death.

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They can rail against it,

whatever your response is to that.

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Um, but what was actually

said at the rally?

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Most people don't know unless

they attended the rally.

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Most people haven't taken the time to

look at the speech and to hear what

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was actually said during the entirety

of that time that she was there.

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Um, and for the time

that she actually spoke.

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So what you're doing is just basically

regurgitating what you're hearing,

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which is rumor, which is a type of.

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misinformation.

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All right.

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Then there's disinformation.

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Disinformation usually happens

in the form of campaigns.

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It can, i.

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e.

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when you have different entities

who connect or come together in

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order to spread malicious untruths,

like they intentionally, right?

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So misinformation can be an accident.

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Disinformation is the intentional

spread of false information.

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All right, and so we're seeing

some of that definitely in the

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political landscape, but you can

see that online any given day.

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I mean, people will just be

making up stuff, you know, Samuel.

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Um, well, that can be misinformation.

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Samuel Jackson is, you know, uh, Tito

Jackson's brother, you know, that can be

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misinformation, but if you intentionally

engage in discussions that cause

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people harm, um, that cause people,

you know, To want to harm other people,

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um, that change somebody's values or

beliefs about something, then that is

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disinformation and that is the intentional

spread of incorrect or inaccurate

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information in order to cause or do harm.

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And that is very much so deleterious.

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So as we move into.

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This next phase of this presidential

election as we go into our next

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major sporting event, because, you

know, there's a lot of misinformation

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going on about the Olympics,

particularly if you didn't watch.

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There's a disinformation campaign going on

against Jordan Childs by someone online.

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You know, it causes harm, you know, for

example, you know, Jordan Childs, she

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has, um, stepped away from social media

to, to protect her mental health because

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of the bullying that has occurred based

on the disinformation campaign that

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some of those involved in the Olympics

would have to justify, um, them trying

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to rescind her, her bronze medal.

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Um, if you actually watched.

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The, the actual meat, you know, that

she had been significantly underscored

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for reasons unknown, um, based on

technicality, uh, because she had

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one of the most technically advanced

performances, um, and after that was,

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you know, Questioned by her coach,

uh, they actually changed her score,

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which is how she got the bronze medal.

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Nobody gave it to her.

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She was not a DEI hire, you know, which

I've seen all kinds of just craziness.

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Um, it was the score.

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She had been underscored

from the beginning.

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Um, and it was a correction to the score,

uh, because they had made an error.

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All right.

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And the coach caught the

error and they corrected it.

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So it wasn't that they gave it to her

or, you know, uh, she didn't deserve it.

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She was, you know, uh,

number five in the beginning.

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Um, and they're just trying to

give it to her cause she's black

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or biracial or whatever the hell,

you know, people want to call her.

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Um, it is actually because there

was an error on the part of, uh, the

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judges and they had to correct it.

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And, um, the reason that they're now

trying to rescind it is because there's

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a rule, uh, that says you have to raise

the issue within 1 minute of it happening.

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And, uh, they're saying that

her coach was 4 seconds late.

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Um, although.

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The USA says that they have proof that the

issue was raised within the one minute.

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All right.

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So, you know, this is like, as the

world turns, but my point is, there's

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lots of misinformation in there.

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And then there are also people who

are engaging in a disinformation

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campaign in order to change my people's

minds about who Jordan Childs is.

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And it is impacting her because

it's infecting her mental health

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and is causing others to do harmful

things, like say bad things to her,

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threaten her with bodily violence.

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You know, all of these things, um,

which is just, you know, Not necessary,

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um, and only serves people who want

the worst for her, as opposed to

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those who may want the best for her.

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So, as we go forward, um, in life in

general, um, we're going to have to

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become more sophisticated, um, in our

analyses, and that is because AI is real.

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You know, deep fakes are real.

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Um, a lot of the political assets

you're seeing, they're just splicing

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together, splicing together stuff

and making a narrative out of it,

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taking it completely out of context.

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Um, you know, and, uh, we have to be

aware of that so that when we make

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our decisions, they're based on real

life, not artificial intelligence.

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Um, what you have actually seen and

witnessed with your own eyes, um, which

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you have actually heard, you know?

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So.

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Be mindful of just taking sound bites

and running with them, um, float memes,

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um, just because you know, your favorite,

one of your favorite people posted it.

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Um, really think about how you use,

you know, that really knowledge that

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you have that cultural, it's really

cultural capital that you have because

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you have the ability to really shift, uh,

people's trajectories and to, uh, change

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people's lives for the good and the bad.

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Join us next week on the Black

Executive Perspective podcast.

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And I will see you then, um,

until then practice discernment,

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learn what a deep fake is.

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Remember there's misinformation, which

can be unintentional and disinformation,

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which is totally intentional

and try to stay away from both.

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How about that?

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Have a good day.

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BEP Narrator: A black

executive perspective.