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Funding

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for the Think Podcast comes

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from the way of the reign, Hope for

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Earth, performance created for orchestra,

0:07

chorus film, art, and spoken word.

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accompanied with live spoken word by

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dallas symphony dot org.

0:29

Spending time online isn't something

0:31

most to us even notice anymore. So many

0:33

of us check our phones as soon as we wake up.

0:35

open Twitter, browse, Instagram stories,

0:37

maybe watch some reels or TikToks. Maybe

0:40

you get push notifications from new sites and

0:42

read articles or briefs. maybe you click

0:44

through the river of content on Facebook. Even

0:47

if you aren't a social media person, you

0:49

might watch music videos on YouTube or

0:51

track your meals and steps in a fitness app,

0:53

or shop for nearly anything.

0:55

The Internet is in most of our

0:57

pockets, which means the spread of information,

1:00

good and bad, has never been so

1:02

quick or far reaching. And it's

1:04

not just adults who are reading, scrolling,

1:07

and sharing. From K Yirei

1:09

and Dallas, this is Think. I'm Courtney

1:11

Collins in for Chris Boyd. Waiting

1:13

through a deluge of content online is

1:15

a challenge for people of any age, but it's

1:17

particularly tricky for kids and teens.

1:20

That's exactly why doctor Seema Yasmin

1:22

wrote a book for young readers, a sort of

1:24

compass to move safely through the chaos.

1:26

It's called, what the fact? finding

1:29

the truth in all the noise. And she joins

1:31

us now to talk about it. Seema, welcome

1:33

back to think. Thank you so much for

1:35

having me on again. Of course. So

1:37

I did wanna ask you before we get into the

1:39

content. The topics tackled in this book

1:41

are things adults debate and analyze all the

1:43

time When did it hit you that you wanted

1:45

to put this together for young readers?

1:48

When I was having conversations about

1:51

these topics, about the insurrection, about

1:54

has been meddling with about the

1:56

rise of information warfare

1:58

and propaganda and just all the shady

1:59

stuff you hear about social media algorithms.

2:02

and realizing there's not really anything

2:05

out there that's fun and entertaining

2:07

and informative for young people. So

2:09

we as adults are grappling with this

2:11

and I think

2:12

really struggling

2:13

with these problems, but then I thought

2:15

we're really doing a disservice to

2:17

young people if all we're saying

2:19

to them is, fake news. fake

2:21

news. Be skeptical. Don't believe anything

2:23

you hear. Don't trust the journalists. as

2:25

opposed to breaking down the situation

2:28

for them and explaining the research

2:30

out there that shows there are

2:32

proven ways to make

2:34

yourself more resilient against falling

2:37

for the lies.

2:37

So as you said, this book is

2:40

a lot of fun. It's really engaging. It

2:42

freezes as you read it. but

2:44

it's also pretty high level and pretty comprehensive.

2:46

Was it tricky kind of striking that balance?

2:49

You'll also act as tricky as I thought

2:51

it would be, you know, speaking to a lot of young

2:53

people. They are very smart. They

2:56

are tapped into these conversations.

2:58

They're very capable of having nuanced

3:01

discussions around critical

3:03

thinking and around media literacy and

3:05

digital literacy. So it was

3:07

fun actually writing for

3:09

a younger reader. They made me just wanna write

3:11

for younger readers. From now on, if I'm honest,

3:14

I find, like, adults to be boring. If

3:16

I'm really honest, because I think there's an

3:18

honesty to it, and there's a a

3:20

way that you can break down the absurdity and

3:23

the harm with what's going on, the,

3:25

quote, unquote, vague news of false. information

3:28

that's spreading and not to

3:30

sound too corny, but it's okay to

3:32

be a little bit corny that young people

3:34

are our best hope. get

3:37

about solving this problem. And

3:39

while young people are

3:39

certainly young in an experience, they're also

3:41

so curious and so open. I mean, they think about

3:44

my eight year old who's too young for this book,

3:46

but I'm kind of blown away daily by what

3:48

he wonders about and what he has been able

3:50

to store in his brain. And so, I mean,

3:52

if that's also true, is young and and

3:54

experiences as readers are. They're also wide

3:56

open to new ways of

3:57

thinking. Absolutely. And this

3:59

starts by greeting

4:02

the reader and saying, hi, free thinker

4:05

because we all like to think with supreme

4:07

free thinkers, but it straightaway

4:09

says this book is not going to

4:11

tell you what to think it's

4:13

going to challenge your beliefs

4:16

though, and it's gonna challenge the way that you

4:17

form and hold

4:19

on to your beliefs.

4:20

And what it's asking readers

4:22

who are twelve and up, but really adult

4:25

readers too, is are

4:27

you comfortable challenging what you believe

4:29

in? And If

4:31

not, why not? And what does

4:33

that say about you? And

4:35

what do you think of the idea of not just

4:37

having a binary

4:38

approach to belief? Like

4:39

it's not an on off switch.

4:42

Yes, I believe this thing. No, I

4:44

don't believe this thing. Actually,

4:46

what's really helpful, more interesting,

4:48

and kind of steeper from a cognitive perspective

4:51

is assigning a level of credence

4:53

to our beliefs and saying, you know what?

4:55

based on the data I've seen

4:58

on climate change or gun control

5:00

or work, whatever it might be, I

5:03

hold particular belief, but I'm gonna say I

5:05

hold it at like a level six or a

5:07

level seven. And what that

5:09

does is when someone then

5:11

says, hey, I'm gonna challenge

5:13

this belief of yours. You have this

5:15

open mind and you're ready to engage in

5:17

this discussion. You will take in

5:19

new information. And based on that, you might

5:21

say, you know what? Actually, I'm gonna

5:23

say that this belief now

5:26

has a higher level of credence. I'm gonna

5:28

say it's like an a level eight or I'm

5:30

gonna drop it down to a level six.

5:32

And actually, young people are

5:34

highly capable of doing

5:36

this. There's even studies I've seen kids

5:39

younger than your child, like five,

5:41

six years old, really able

5:43

to get deeply involved in these

5:45

nuanced and complex conversations

5:47

around gray areas and around why

5:49

we believe the things that we believe.

5:51

One

5:51

of the first big points you make in the book

5:53

is that ideas are contagious, and

5:55

we often spread information without

5:57

even realizing that we're spreading it.

5:59

Yes. And I use the infection

6:01

metaphora, public

6:03

health doctor and an epidemiologist. And the way

6:05

I even came into this field of study, it

6:07

was so accidental I used to

6:09

be an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence

6:11

Service at the CDC, so my job

6:14

was to chase infections. It was

6:16

to stop contagion. and it's when

6:18

I was doing that job now over a decade

6:20

ago. My goodness that I came face to

6:22

face with the fact that whenever I was

6:24

deployed to a hot zone, it

6:26

was never just a virus that

6:28

was spreading in tandem

6:30

with the infection. There was this contagious

6:32

spread of inflammation Sometimes

6:35

it was accurate, sometimes it was medical

6:37

myths and health hoaxes. And so

6:39

then I started to I went to journalism school

6:41

and I started to transition into studying communications.

6:44

And my mind was blown

6:47

when I learned that the exact

6:49

same mathematical models that I used

6:51

to use as a disease detective to

6:54

track where an infection might spread

6:56

to how many might infect. Those

6:58

exact same models were used

7:00

by communication scholars who

7:02

were tracking the spread of a tweet.

7:05

And so that I learned all of these parallels

7:07

between the spread of misinformation

7:09

and disinformation and the

7:11

spread of infectious disease.

7:13

And so I think this is a helpful way

7:15

also to present the problem to young people.

7:17

And then, of course, later in the book, We

7:19

get into real evidence based solutions

7:22

for inoculating ourselves against

7:25

falling for life. So as we walk through

7:27

the content of this book. I have to

7:29

say, it's essential

7:30

that we start with the vegetable lambs

7:32

of tartare. First of all,

7:34

what on earth is my only question.

7:36

that is a wild story dating

7:39

back a few hundred years that

7:41

illustrates the fact that yeah. Yeah. Okay.

7:43

We all think we're free thinkers, but

7:45

let's be real hair across

7:47

humanity. And today, we all

7:49

fall for stuff that's like ridiculous.

7:52

And so the vegetable lambs

7:54

of artery were

7:56

creatures that the top

7:58

minds in the world, the scientists,

8:01

the biologists, the scholars, had

8:03

drawn pictures of and said, these

8:05

creatures exist and what are they?

8:08

They're lambs, but they

8:10

grow on stalk. out

8:12

of the ground and

8:14

their flesh taste like fish

8:16

but also like honey and

8:18

these pore lambs because They

8:21

grow out of a stalk that's a

8:23

fix to their belly. They can only

8:25

graze on the grass that's around them. And

8:27

then when that perimeter is fully graze,

8:29

the poor lamb will die. And

8:31

so you think, oh come on, like, who

8:33

would fall for that? The millions

8:36

did because the scholars at the time

8:38

said, yes. this is true. And

8:40

then in what the fact, I tell the

8:42

story of

8:42

this one adventurer explorer who

8:45

was sent

8:45

by a king to search

8:47

tartery

8:47

that a region that we would now consider

8:50

part of Asia, and the

8:52

foreign explorer came back and said to the king

8:54

king. I'm so sorry, these labs

8:56

don't exist. I've already seen

8:58

labs that, you know, run around,

9:00

not ones that grow out of the

9:02

ground. And so it's easy for us to look back and

9:04

be like, oh my goodness. humans

9:06

are weird. We wouldn't do that now.

9:08

But then I talk about the weird things

9:10

that we do believe in now or even the

9:13

record number of cell

9:15

phone towers that were

9:17

set on fire during the

9:19

pandemic because there were

9:21

thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who

9:23

were convinced that the

9:25

coronavirus that causes COVID-nineteen

9:27

was being spread via

9:29

five g. So there were self engineers

9:32

who were kidnapped in

9:34

South America, and there were these

9:36

cellphone towers across Europe, especially been

9:38

other places too that were set on fire

9:41

just recently because there were

9:43

humans who chose

9:43

to believe that

9:45

this pandemic was being spread by

9:47

5G. Howard Bauchner: I know

9:48

it was such an interesting read to go from

9:50

the lambs that, you know, allegedly grow

9:52

untreated, straight to something that seems

9:54

so absurd straight to the five g

9:57

myth that really was not

9:59

just a

9:59

small group of people bought in

10:02

on that one.

10:03

Right. Right. And I I like to tell

10:05

this story that in the the misinformation

10:08

and disinformation research, we

10:10

like to ask each like, what's the thing that

10:12

you've fallen for recently that

10:14

wasn't true? And one of my colleagues,

10:16

Nat Janice, who actually

10:18

coined the term co coined the

10:20

term. misinfodemic. When we

10:22

have Zoom calls or conference

10:24

calls, she likes to start off the

10:26

meeting by asking the other miss

10:28

information and disinformation researchers. Okay.

10:31

So someone or two people

10:33

mess up what's the thing that you've fallen for

10:35

recently. It might have been something wow

10:37

that you believe for

10:37

a few minutes or maybe you would do for a

10:39

whole day or a whole week, but it's that

10:42

reminder that don't be prideful about this

10:44

and the book gets into it, what the

10:46

fact explains how our brains are

10:48

susceptible to stories

10:50

and how belief is really part

10:52

of belonging. So

10:54

oftentimes, even the most quote unquote

10:56

educated of us, the ones, you know, the the

10:58

smartest, we have these

11:00

biases that trip us up, and we

11:02

do believe in things maybe

11:04

not as wild as the vegetable

11:06

lab of poultry, but maybe so

11:08

actually. Well, I think this is a

11:10

good time to talk briefly about this

11:12

famous Facebook post

11:12

that kind of comes up quite a few times in the

11:15

book by a man named Peter, and it

11:17

had Peter Lee Goodchild, I believe, was his

11:19

name. And it's worth talking about for a

11:21

lot of different reasons, so it was a bunch

11:23

of points about COVID-nineteen,

11:25

basically. Yeah,

11:26

and many people will have seam as you might

11:28

remember it from very early in the pandemic to

11:30

say like March, April of twenty twenty, I

11:32

think it was. And look, I was spoiled

11:34

for choice, war writing, what

11:36

the fact. when it came to

11:38

picking viral Facebook

11:41

posts or viral tweets or

11:43

TikToks that illustrated the

11:45

points I was trying to say about virality or like

11:47

how a lie will spread around the

11:49

world while the truth sits quietly in

11:51

a corner. But this one was an

11:53

interesting Facebook post

11:55

because this very grandfatherly

11:57

looking man from England had

11:59

written this post about someone

12:01

he knew who was well connected with the

12:03

scientist and they'd

12:05

learned all these

12:05

things about the new Coronavirus.

12:08

And mind you,

12:08

this was at a time when if you had asked

12:11

any honest scientists like, Tell

12:13

me exactly how long this virus will

12:15

stay on a doorknob. Like, we just

12:17

didn't have the answers, but that stuff has

12:19

so much uncertainty. but

12:21

Peter's Facebook post said

12:23

all these things about how the virus

12:25

spread, how it didn't, what you could do

12:27

to protect yourself. It wasn't

12:30

outwardly harmful and that it wasn't saying

12:32

anything along

12:32

the lines of drink bleach for example.

12:35

It was more like a cargill with water and

12:37

stop drinking ice water. Right? Yeah.

12:39

It was like, if you drink yeah. Exactly.

12:41

It was all sorts of weird stuff, but it wasn't,

12:43

like, outwardly harmful or

12:45

malicious. And so I get the reader to kind of

12:47

think about what category of false

12:49

information are we gonna call that because we get into the whole

12:51

the language and the power of words around

12:53

this. But what's fascinating is

12:55

how that post

12:56

took off, how many

12:58

languages it was translated into,

13:01

and this concept of copy

13:04

pasta, which is the time we use

13:06

in this field of research, where

13:08

you don't just necessarily retweet

13:10

or repost the original false

13:13

message, but you type it out

13:15

yourself. So it looks like it originated from

13:17

you, and then you add a different attribution.

13:19

So at one point, this

13:21

post that early on came from Peter,

13:22

although it probably didn't start

13:24

with him, there was an attribution that

13:26

the advice in this post, which was

13:28

not evidence based, came from researchers

13:30

at Stanford University, and it went so

13:32

viral that Stanford had to issue

13:34

an official statement and say, look, this isn't

13:36

from us. We thought I'd have all these aren't

13:38

about COVID-nineteen, but

13:41

these messages just take on a

13:43

life of their own, their contagious.

13:45

They because they're completely exploiting our

13:48

need to

13:50

fill the knowledge gaps, to

13:52

have some level of certainty in a

13:54

world that's really gray and

13:56

frightening in which a novel,

13:58

mysterious infection is spreading.

14:00

So like I said, I was floored for choice so

14:03

many anecdotes and messages that you

14:05

can think of that went viral. But this

14:07

was a really interesting one. Actually,

14:09

BBC researchers tracked down

14:11

Paul Peter And he was like, look, I wasn't

14:13

trying to harm anyone. I just seen this

14:15

somewhere else. And so I also get

14:17

into the analogy of, like, looking for patient

14:19

zero, which is something I would do when I was a

14:21

disease attack it's something you can do as

14:23

an information detective too. And so I

14:25

get into that in the book, like, where did this

14:27

message even really

14:29

originate from?

14:29

I think this is a good time to talk a

14:32

little bit about the differences between

14:34

misinformation, disinformation,

14:36

and mal information. Can you walk

14:38

us through those three? Yeah.

14:39

Let's get into that. And let me

14:42

say that the reason I get into this in

14:44

the book is because I want

14:46

the reader to be on with this

14:48

language. and also because I get into this

14:50

idea that the term

14:52

fake news is not really

14:54

helpful because it's so

14:56

vague and It

14:58

lumps together so many different

15:00

things. And it's a

15:02

term that's now been weaponized and is

15:04

kind of loved like a

15:06

word grenade. especially at

15:08

journalists and especially

15:10

by people in power who fear

15:12

being held accountable So that's why

15:14

and what the fact we get into

15:16

the language around this problem.

15:19

Also to say that we have these words now

15:21

that we we use all time maybe every day, misinformation,

15:23

disinformation, especially, and I'll get

15:25

into mail information too. But

15:27

there's this really interesting and

15:29

kind of comical history of

15:31

language around the problem of

15:33

false herd spreading because, of course,

15:36

this problem isn't new. No. because

15:38

I really enjoyed the part of the book, where

15:40

I got to dig into the

15:43

English language from hundreds of years

15:45

ago, and there's these weird

15:47

funky words like tarred

15:49

idler for somebody who,

15:51

like, sells fake

15:53

cures and is a quack. But,

15:55

of course, bringing us to modern times when

15:57

we're talking about misinformation and

15:59

disinformation. We're talking

16:02

about false information. But the

16:04

difference is that misinformation is

16:06

false information. they're spread

16:08

without any intention of causing harm.

16:10

So Peter would say, look, we didn't know much

16:12

about this COVID virus thing, but

16:14

I'd heard this stuff about ice and ice

16:16

water and washing your hands and

16:18

I just thought it would be helpful to put it out

16:20

there. So he said he doesn't realize it was

16:22

false information and he certainly had

16:24

no intention to hurt people we

16:26

classify that as misinformation.

16:28

It's

16:29

different to disinformation,

16:31

which is false information spread

16:33

with the intention of causing harm. And we've

16:35

seen this time and time

16:37

again, not just with COVID, but with the

16:39

Ebola epidemic, with elections,

16:42

with the Black Lives Matter movement with the

16:44

women's march, especially

16:46

coming from bad actors

16:48

in Russia, who are funded by

16:50

the Kremlin. where they are

16:52

looking for fractures in foreign

16:54

societies and seeding

16:56

this bad information out there. This is

16:58

disinformation to calls

17:01

harm. So one example of

17:03

disinformation was during the Ebola

17:05

epidemic. And I think it was just

17:07

after Ebola perhaps had arrived

17:09

in Dallas. But there was

17:11

a a group of people

17:13

linked to the Russian government who

17:15

hacked the Yahoo News Account,

17:17

Twitter account. and

17:20

tweeted that there was an Ebola

17:22

outbreak in Atlanta. Mhmm. And

17:24

they also created a fake CNN

17:26

dot com landing page that had

17:28

photos and said, there was

17:30

Ebola in Atlanta. There was no Ebola epidemic

17:32

in Atlanta, but it looks so believable and

17:34

that kind of disinformation, of course,

17:37

can cause chaos if people overwhelm the

17:39

healthcare system if there's panic, for

17:41

example. Now the third category,

17:43

mal inflammation is a little different because

17:45

it's actually accurate information,

17:47

but accurate information that's shared

17:50

absent of contacts and is

17:52

harmful because should

17:54

never have been made public.

17:56

And also in what the fact we get into like

17:58

a whole another spectrum that talks

18:00

about satire and parody -- Mhmm.

18:02

-- and framing and just the the

18:05

different levels and different kinds

18:07

of false information that's spread out there

18:09

so that we're not using this useless

18:11

term of fake news.

18:13

Since so much of what's out there isn't

18:15

truly fake, and actually what can be

18:17

really misleading and really powerful is

18:19

information that has a kernel of truth

18:21

in it -- Right. -- or a photograph that

18:23

is framed in a particular way that

18:25

strips the photo of context

18:27

that can be used to spread a

18:29

really harmful narrative. There and

18:32

it's hard to

18:32

describe pictures on the radio. What we should do our

18:34

best about the woman on the Western Strip. Right?

18:36

That is a classic example of

18:39

context being missing and point of

18:41

view, being inaccurate, and

18:43

doing real harm. Yeah.

18:44

And it shows, and I'll describe the picture, but the

18:47

this whole incident shows how much harm

18:49

you

18:49

can do with a real photo. You don't

18:51

need any photo shot skills, but get deep

18:53

fakes. You don't have to do any of that. So what

18:56

happened a few years ago, there was a

18:58

horrific attack on

19:00

the west meant a bridge in London right by the

19:02

houses of parliament. A number of

19:04

people were stabbed. It was it

19:06

was terrifying. In

19:08

the midst of this chaos, somebody had taken

19:10

a photo of a Muslim woman wearing

19:12

a hijab on her cell phone walking

19:15

past somebody who had been attacked on the bridge.

19:17

I actually think when you look at it that she

19:19

does look distraught, but she

19:21

ended up against

19:22

her cheek, but Yeah.

19:25

Well, it's actually holding your face, but I I you

19:27

can totally see how someone could just run a

19:29

different direction with that photo.

19:31

Why? And they totally did. So what the narrative

19:33

was was look at this

19:35

Muslim woman, she's nonchalantly

19:38

walking past a person who's

19:40

on the ground bleeding out while others

19:42

are helping the Muslim

19:43

woman is just walking

19:45

ahead and doesn't care.

19:47

and that wasn't true. She had

19:49

just helped somebody actually. She was now

19:51

on the phone with her family who were panicked because

19:53

they knew where she was and knew what

19:56

was happening. and she was trying to get

19:58

home. But what

20:00

turned out to be Russian troll

20:02

accounts

20:03

really amplified this narrative of Muslims are

20:05

terrorists and Muslims support terrorism

20:08

based on a

20:08

photo that again was real. It was not

20:11

doctored. They didn't have to do anything

20:13

to it. except for a sign the

20:15

sports narrative to it and

20:17

and they did that by stripping it of its context.

20:19

And then what other pictures do they they put

20:21

that picture next to another picture of

20:23

a white Christian politician from the

20:26

UK who was assisting somebody who'd

20:28

been stabbed and they were saying, look, Christians

20:30

help, Muslims don't. I mean, it

20:32

sounds ridiculous, but it went viral.

20:35

It even landed on the pages

20:37

of tabloid newspapers in the UK.

20:40

and it came from Russia, but it

20:42

was exactly kind of poking within

20:44

those fisces that

20:44

they knew already existed.

20:47

And often,

20:48

it's not even someone taking

20:50

a photo out of context, but it's someone taking

20:52

a photo from one event and assigning it

20:54

to another. There's one of two children hugging that people

20:57

acted like it was in the aftermath of, I

20:59

think, some sort of tsunami or some sort of

21:01

natural disaster, but it was really just a blogger's

21:03

photo from a trip to a

21:05

village in Vietnam. Right?

21:07

And

21:07

this happens all the time, and

21:09

that's why it's really important that even as we

21:11

start talking more about being savvy around

21:14

fact checking, don't just fact check what you

21:16

read. Fact check

21:18

images and video too. There's ways of

21:20

doing that online. You can even just

21:22

very easily in a search engine, type in

21:24

like reverse image search, or how do I

21:26

fact check a photo or a video? Because

21:28

as the example, states

21:31

and what the fact is this picture of two

21:33

very cute young kids cuddling,

21:35

and this photo emerges all

21:37

the time after different nap old

21:39

father. Look at these two children huddling after an

21:41

earthquake in the past and look at these

21:43

two children huddling after a tsunami in my

21:46

environment like wherever it is. And

21:48

actually, like you said, no. This was an image that was

21:50

taken by a photographer in one particular village

21:52

a long time ago.

21:55

But this happens a lot. And in

21:57

this particular instance, maybe you could say, well,

21:59

it's not causing much harm. But in

22:01

other instances, we've seen images

22:03

of mass graves go

22:05

viral. and that image saying being used

22:07

to push a narrative that a particular incident

22:09

was so deadly. But actually, when you do a

22:11

reverse image search, you do a little bit of

22:14

digging you find out the image was related to something

22:16

completely different. That happened a really long

22:18

time ago. And sometimes there are very

22:20

real life consequences to this

22:22

too. So going back to the image of the

22:24

Muslim woman in London, she

22:26

faced threats in real life. Her life,

22:28

she felt very unsafe and in

22:31

danger. So there are ways that these

22:33

harmful narratives, yes, affect millions

22:35

of people, the billions of Muslims around the

22:37

world, but will also impact the person

22:39

who's very directly involved in that in

22:42

the center of that narrative. Howard

22:44

Bauchner: So

22:44

you brought up satire earlier, so I wanna give

22:46

you the talk the chance to talk a

22:47

little bit about Post Law.

22:50

This probably

22:51

happens or trips us up all

22:53

the time. Post Law is when you

22:55

have that moment of wait.

22:57

Hold on a second. This sounds too weird

23:00

to be true, but it

23:02

actually could be true. So that's Poseidon. I do

23:04

think that happens to many of

23:06

us. where just because of the world we live in,

23:08

just because the amount of information we're day

23:10

lose with and just

23:12

not knowing, wait. I know a lot

23:14

of false information spreads, but is

23:16

this false. And so I give an example, I don't even

23:19

talk about names or anything, but the

23:21

idea that a politician perhaps

23:23

from access even might

23:26

flee his state during

23:28

a catastrophic and

23:30

horrific weather event

23:32

where people are dying, but

23:34

this politician might flee on a

23:36

plane to somewhere really tropical, to

23:38

have a family vacation, and you can read that and

23:40

think, okay, that's false information. Somebody clearly has

23:42

a vendetta against this politician because who

23:45

what what human in their right mind would

23:48

do there? And then you think the could that be true? So

23:50

that's post law inaction. And

23:52

it's tripped people

23:52

up kind of the reverse way as well. There's a

23:55

famous onion article,

23:57

I guess, that had a false cover of the

23:59

teen

23:59

magazine Tiger beat with president Obama

24:02

smiling on it, and it it got people. They thought

24:04

it was real.

24:06

it really

24:06

did. I don't know if I talk about that and what the

24:08

fact that, hey, the New

24:10

York Times had to issue this

24:13

correction. They said, oops. We

24:15

included a a cover from yeah.

24:17

From that was featured in the onion that was doctored

24:19

by the onion, but we included it in the

24:21

New York as if it was

24:23

the real thing. So it's tripped up

24:26

institutions and gel less and

24:28

commentators all across the board. it's

24:30

definitely worth a Google

24:30

search because I believe the cover has a

24:32

big greeting picture. It says Barak, quote, I

24:34

sing in the shower, and then it says, huge

24:37

Obama poster inside, which is how

24:39

Tiger Bootleg is used to get us all

24:41

on the newsstand. So it's really worth the search

24:43

if we haven't seen it. And it

24:44

it's humbling. It's like, look,

24:46

this got past the facts. checkers at The

24:48

New York Times. And I've written for The New

24:50

York Times. Those fact checkers will have you

24:53

questioning your own existence.

24:55

Like, am I real? Do I do I

24:57

exist? but this got past them.

24:59

So it it just shows how, sadly,

25:01

we have to be how humble, how

25:03

open to being wrong, and open

25:05

to correcting ourselves. I want you

25:07

to talk a little bit about the power of a

25:09

good story. You start one of these

25:11

chapters with just this beautifully

25:14

crafted anecdote about a young girl and

25:16

a puppy she rescued on

25:18

a a native reservation and how they

25:20

both fell ill. And I'm not gonna lie to you. I did

25:22

not I just put my pen down in red. I was

25:24

completely in transit was

25:26

wonderful detail. It it you

25:28

couldn't get away from this story.

25:30

So explain why you decided to

25:32

share that story in this book and

25:35

what good storytelling can do to our

25:37

brains. So

25:38

I start that chapter of

25:41

what the fact we're like you

25:43

said, this immersive story about a little

25:45

girl and how puppy and

25:47

how both of them foresick with this

25:49

infection that's spreading it. It's based on

25:51

my own field studies when I was a disease center, this is something I

25:53

saw kids fall sick with in the

25:55

reservations. And as I tell the

25:57

story, and then I hit

25:59

you with some bullet points like these

26:01

are some facts about these epidemics

26:03

and this infection and then get

26:05

you to being, what's more

26:07

memorable? Like, in a few weeks

26:09

time when you're reading another book,

26:11

and someone asks you about that story.

26:13

Do you remember the little girl?

26:15

putting her puppy into the basket on

26:18

the front of her bike and cycling

26:20

through the field? Or will you

26:22

remember some of those hard dry

26:24

medical facts that I put put in

26:26

the bullet points. And it's

26:28

a reminder that stories stay

26:30

with us. We grew up punt stories.

26:32

We learned language and culture and

26:35

everything through stories and our

26:37

brains love them. Our brains, you know, and

26:39

I'm an epidemiologist. I love data sets and

26:41

I like. looking at trends

26:43

and patterns. But when I talk

26:45

to evolutionary biologists for

26:47

this book, they were reminding

26:49

me that our brains were not

26:51

really designed to grapple with

26:53

millions of data points and

26:55

large data sets.

26:57

Our brains evolved to

27:00

really connect with others and

27:02

understand the world through

27:04

stories. And so we are

27:06

susceptible

27:06

to stories. And when I teach epidemiologists

27:08

at the CDC and other places about

27:11

storytelling, and scientists in general,

27:13

they're certainly that moment of cringe, like,

27:15

oh no, we don't like an anecdote.

27:17

we wanna tell, you know, talk about the data, the five million

27:19

data points. But it the two

27:21

don't have to be mutually exclusive. You

27:23

can find a story that people

27:25

can connect with that tells

27:27

the overarching story, the

27:28

narrative of your data analysis. And I

27:31

think coming back to being a public

27:33

health doctor and coming back

27:35

to having to fight over

27:37

the last decade, lots of outbreaks of vaccine preventable

27:41

diseases ignoring how

27:44

susceptible we are to stories has

27:46

been to the detriment of

27:49

public health because I would

27:51

be sent in to investigate these

27:53

epidemics of whooping cough in America. I mean, I

27:55

saw kids die of whooping

27:57

cough in America in the last

27:59

ten years. That was just anatheme,

28:01

and we've got in

28:03

try and quilher the contagion and hit

28:05

people with facts. Right? Here are

28:07

bullet points. Here are pamphlets. Here's a

28:10

PowerPoint presentation about how the

28:12

MMR vaccine and the Potosys vaccine

28:14

don't cause autism, they're safe, or this

28:16

stuff. It did nothing

28:19

because what it was countering were

28:21

these heartfelt stories.

28:23

These compelling

28:24

YouTube videos and

28:26

nowadays TikToks and Pinterest.

28:28

Two new Pinterest was the hub of

28:31

or things anti vaccine. But on these

28:34

platforms, you found a mother, for example,

28:36

who can you know,

28:38

really believed that her three year old now

28:40

couldn't string a sentence together because

28:42

she had vaccinated the kid. And

28:44

she'd be crying and, you know,

28:47

showing the kid, and it was launched just so,

28:49

like, devastating. And we

28:51

have evidence coming back to the five

28:53

million data points about how

28:55

vaccines don't do that. But in public health,

28:57

we were completely ignoring

28:59

this fact that neurologically, biologically,

29:03

we are acceptable to stories until

29:05

we need to tap into that, not in a way that's

29:07

manipulative, although people have done that

29:09

too, that's happening. But in a way

29:11

that kind of honors the methods and the

29:13

strategies in which we humans acquire

29:16

information and make sense of the world, its

29:18

stories, And

29:19

that's so interesting because I'm assuming the power of

29:21

stories that you alluded to can really be harnessed

29:23

for good, can really be harnessed

29:26

for careless, and can really be

29:28

harnessed for evil. So is it

29:30

important for young people to think about

29:32

that to really acknowledge the

29:34

brute power of storytelling to actually mess

29:36

with their brain chemistry when they get

29:38

sucked into any narrative online or read a

29:41

publication? Absolutely. And

29:42

I get into that in the

29:44

book, like, hey, isn't this amazing now you know the

29:46

thing about your brain and

29:48

the different regions of your brain. And I talk about

29:51

mirror neurons, how you can

29:53

crack open a really good novel

29:55

or that chapter in what the fact that starts

29:57

with the story you mentioned -- Mhmm. -- you

29:59

may be thousands of miles away

30:01

from an American Indian reservation or somewhere

30:03

that's war or somewhere where

30:05

you could bite through a field. But when you are

30:07

immersed in a story about it,

30:09

the parts of your brain that

30:11

would register and be responsible

30:13

for signaling to your

30:14

muscles, your feelings. Were you

30:17

on that reservation? Were you

30:19

cuddling a cute puppy and looking into its

30:21

eyes? And were you biking across

30:23

the field? those parts of your

30:25

brain light up. That's

30:27

how powerful stories are. And

30:29

advertisers know this. Some

30:31

governments know this. some anti science

30:33

groups know this, and they

30:35

exploit our brain biology.

30:37

And so I want young people to be aware of

30:39

that. But I think that every solution

30:42

and evidence based strategy I offer in

30:44

the book, I'm also talking about ways that it's

30:46

used against us so that we can be empowered

30:48

and aware and look out for that.

30:50

So there are so many great sections of this book. We need

30:52

to tap in a little bit to the section about journalism

30:55

because it's fascinating, because I think that

30:57

I speak to so many young people who

30:59

don't have a

30:59

good grasp of how journalism works. We spend a lot of time

31:01

talking about people who purport false

31:04

information or spread things around via

31:06

Facebook, but Fact matter

31:08

is journalism really matters, especially

31:10

local journalism, and why do you make that

31:13

point?

31:13

Journalism is so important.

31:16

It's been termed the immune

31:18

system of a democracy.

31:21

And I'll tell you I've been

31:23

digging into these studies show

31:25

what exactly happens when

31:27

your town loses its local

31:30

newspaper and it's really

31:32

bad. your taxes increased by an

31:34

average of eighty five dollars per person.

31:37

Government corruption increases

31:39

when you lose your local usage, which

31:41

makes sense. Right? The the

31:43

reporters that hold the powerful to

31:46

account, the people who will

31:48

turn up to counsel and

31:50

board meetings and sit for

31:52

hours and hours and scrutinize

31:54

public records. If they're not

31:56

there, of course, government corruption,

31:59

persons, government inefficiency also

32:01

happens at greater rates.

32:03

Fewer people turn out to vote in

32:05

a town that's lost its local

32:08

newspaper fewer people run for office

32:10

too for any given elected position,

32:13

and measures of social

32:15

cohesion worsen and increases.

32:18

So losing your local

32:20

newspaper is really bad for

32:22

democracy and really bad for

32:24

governance. And of course, I'm biased

32:27

because straight out of journalism school,

32:29

I cut my teeth in my first

32:31

journalism job as reporter

32:33

at the Dallas Morning News. So I saw

32:35

the good and the bad of

32:38

local journalism. I saw how local

32:40

journalism can pull back

32:42

the curtain on scandal

32:44

and

32:44

corruption and all kinds

32:46

of

32:46

different forms of oppression. But I also saw

32:48

saw the last the Dallas Morning

32:50

News looking at other papers too,

32:52

how certain groups are overlocked, how

32:54

certain neighborhoods are

32:56

erased from the coverage, how certain

32:59

groups misrepresented. And I want young people to be aware

33:01

of that. I always say, you know, subscribe to your

33:03

local newspaper, but I also want

33:05

people to be aware of the shortcomings

33:07

of local news and where there's room for

33:10

improvement. And they talk about the way that

33:12

journalism can

33:13

sometimes or often

33:15

maintains the status quo, unfortunately,

33:17

instead of pushing back

33:20

against what's wrong and what's broken

33:22

in society. But to your point,

33:24

you know, I we ask

33:26

people to trust journalism. We are still

33:28

people. Please get your news from

33:30

Dallas Morning News from K ERA and

33:32

not just from TikTok, please. But

33:34

why do we expect them to do that

33:36

when we're not meeting them where they are,

33:38

when we're not explaining how

33:40

journalism functions and and how a new

33:42

story is made? and it was great to

33:45

read how closely you

33:47

explain things like problems

33:49

with representation and disparity in

33:51

newsrooms, how we can't just say they're

33:53

reporting it and they must be doing it right, how

33:55

there are problems with, you know, how many people of

33:57

color sit in editor roles or on reporting

33:59

staffs,

33:59

how sometimes folks get pulled

34:02

off assignments for reasons that

34:04

kinda border on racist, and you

34:06

don't shy away from explaining that in

34:08

this book.

34:09

want people

34:10

to know it. And I think by if

34:12

we're just trying to portray journalism, it's

34:14

all powerful and all good and

34:18

always you know, fighting the good fight for the poor

34:20

person, the marginalized person. We're gonna lose people

34:22

because we don't always do that. We're not consistent.

34:26

but I want people to have a relationship with

34:28

journalism. And that means being openly critical

34:31

about journalism. It means curating

34:33

a news diet as a young person where you might

34:36

get your climate change news from one

34:38

place and your news about your

34:40

favorite sports team or book

34:42

reviews from different places too. So I'm

34:44

trying to encourage that

34:46

engagement and relationship with journalism, which

34:48

I think is how you build trust

34:50

and understanding. In news, I think it's how you explain who

34:52

reporters are and how they do their

34:54

jobs and how the news gets

34:56

made and how the New

34:58

York Times' motto is a lie because

35:00

it's not all the news that's bit to print. There's

35:02

a ton of stories that are

35:04

left on the cutting

35:06

room floor. any given day, you think about the the massacre, the

35:08

genocide of Rohingya Muslims in

35:10

Myanmar, there was a long period of

35:12

time during which the New York Times

35:14

didn't cover and then there was a point

35:16

at which the New York Times decided that was

35:18

newsworthy. Okay. Well, how many

35:20

people had to die by

35:22

that point? and I used the example of the Flint

35:24

water crisis -- Mhmm. -- in the

35:26

book, especially because that

35:28

involves so many young people

35:31

to talk about how local news was covering that

35:33

in many times in a really, really helpful

35:35

and and good way, and how many months

35:37

it was before the New

35:39

York Times sent it's reported to Flint, Michigan

35:42

and what that time lag says

35:44

about what's newsworthy and whose

35:46

lives

35:47

are important. Right? because news judgment

35:49

isn't something that's objective. It's gonna be decided in the room

35:51

of people and the bigger the paper,

35:53

the maybe perhaps more entrenched the

35:56

editors and

35:58

that sometimes screams for elect

35:59

diversity. Yep. And that

36:01

those decisions about news judgment are

36:03

often made by white sis

36:05

dudes who are able-bodied and heterosexual

36:08

overwhelmingly. And so

36:10

what does that say about which

36:12

stories get told and which don't?

36:15

and even the stories they

36:17

get told. What happens

36:20

because of who has positions of power in

36:22

newsrooms across the country what

36:24

impact does that have on how a

36:26

story is

36:26

framed, how it's told, whose

36:28

voices are included, whose

36:29

voices are screwed. And

36:31

I, again, I used the Flint, Michigan crisis

36:34

a lot in what the fact to

36:36

say that the voices of even

36:38

locals were excluded even though they

36:40

were experts and they were right in their

36:42

community and in that horrific

36:44

example of

36:46

environmental racism and yet many papers gave many more

36:48

inches or much more time in

36:50

their broadcasts to people

36:52

from outside

36:54

of that area or to politicians who were actually lying.

36:56

Right? We know now that those politicians who

36:58

were saying, no. The water's fine. Just

37:00

use it at faith. were

37:03

lying, but they've got given so

37:05

much more space and so much more of

37:07

a platform compared to the poor black

37:10

and brown people whose lives were being irreversibly

37:12

damaged. You make a really

37:14

interesting point when we think about being

37:16

consumers of the news that we don't always

37:19

turn to news to learn or for

37:22

information even sometimes we go there

37:24

kind of looking for

37:26

ritual comfort. We

37:27

do, and I don't think we'd like to

37:29

accept this fact because it's called the

37:31

news. You go there for

37:33

new information. Why? But think about where you get your news and I have

37:35

to ask myself this too. I am

37:38

completely hooked to the BBC because I live in the

37:40

states now and I get a little homesick and

37:42

I grew

37:44

up. on the BBC. But am

37:46

I really watching it for new information? And

37:48

maybe part of me is some of the time

37:51

but there's also a sense

37:54

of of affirmation you get

37:56

from getting the news from the places where

37:58

you regularly

37:59

get

37:59

the news. the BBC, in my

38:02

example, whatever it might be for you, these

38:04

places, these outlets, they

38:07

affirm our worldview. they

38:09

say, oh, this terrible thing's happened, but you know what?

38:12

For the most part, on this

38:14

Monday, on this Tuesday, the

38:16

world is still pretty much

38:18

operating in the way that we like to

38:20

think it operates. So

38:22

it's not just about extracting

38:24

new information from a broadcast

38:26

or from print. It's also about it's

38:28

almost like going to church. It's almost like

38:30

going to the mosque or the synagogue. It's

38:32

like being in an environment where

38:34

we're all singing

38:36

from the same hymn book and we are saying the

38:38

way we look at the world is this

38:40

way and that can be comforting

38:44

and that's why there's this ritual also model of

38:46

of news as well. It's not

38:47

just about information. It

38:49

was really interesting to

38:52

read that. because for

38:54

me, I'm a big tea drinker. I

38:56

like to make hot tea almost all day long. It's

38:58

one of my favorite things. And part of the reason I like it is

39:00

because I like the ritual. I like holding a cup

39:02

put in my hands and hearing the

39:04

kettle whistle and choosing a tea. But I've

39:06

really kind of linked that ritual,

39:08

which is very obviously a

39:10

ritual for me with some of my

39:12

news reading and consuming and it really

39:14

does feel pretty familiar and comforting

39:16

most of the time.

39:17

Yeah. You might be a Brit too, Courtney,

39:20

but it's very British playing on the

39:22

cow and watch if they

39:24

Only. Exactly what I do. You need to just add some toast

39:26

so you have tea and

39:27

toast and the news. So Absolutely.

39:29

Do

39:29

we go back to the news diet

39:31

there? Is that mean, should we

39:33

be pushing ourselves to look a couple different

39:36

directions for how we get our information and how we learn

39:38

new things? Yeah. And

39:39

that's the kind of the

39:41

prescription I would suggest staying to the reader.

39:43

And it's not to say, hey, stop doing exactly what you're doing

39:45

in completely. So it's over to different

39:47

platforms and outlets.

39:50

It's saying maybe for a week or two, you wanna keep watching

39:52

what you watch and keep reading what

39:54

you read, but add in one other

39:57

outlet and just do a quick comparison of the

39:59

same story. How's the Queen's

40:01

funeral being covered

40:03

in the BBC versus

40:05

in Alcizeira, which might be

40:07

offering some context and

40:10

perspective on the

40:12

atrocities that were conducted by

40:14

the royal family and you're not gonna get any of

40:16

that at all in the BBC

40:18

and how might that impact the way that you want

40:20

to get your news

40:22

moving forward? And so it's really trying to

40:24

make us aware of the echo

40:26

chambers and the kind of cozy

40:28

comforting bubbles that we exist

40:30

in, which I'm not mocking that.

40:32

The world is scary and uncertain and it's

40:34

nice to have your tea and

40:36

toast and get your news

40:38

from a broadcaster who looks and sounds

40:40

like you and affirms your

40:42

worldview. But let's shake

40:44

it up a little bit. Let's be aware at least

40:46

of what we're doing when we tune into those

40:48

same news organizations, those same broadcast.

40:51

And let's see how the same

40:53

news and our same world is

40:55

being presented across different

40:58

news organizations.

40:59

we could talk about social media for hours and hours, but we

41:01

don't have too much time left. And I don't

41:03

wanna let you get away without talking a little

41:06

bit about forward thinking things, the of

41:08

banana eating influencer and

41:10

how that could lead someone to

41:14

really dangerous content, which seems wild to think about a girl at

41:16

banana diet and how you could eventually get to

41:18

something kinda truly horrifying, but it

41:20

happens and it continues

41:22

to happen. Yeah. And

41:23

wild is the operative word

41:26

here. So this chapter

41:28

in what the fact kind of takes us

41:30

behind the scenes of algorithms and

41:32

how they function in social media. And I'm talking here about

41:34

the big platforms. There are some social media

41:36

platforms that do not exploit our

41:38

attention in the same

41:40

way that matter and

41:42

TikTok do, for example,

41:44

what I learned from

41:47

doing this research was

41:49

that the algorithms just favor our eyeballs on

41:51

the screen over everything.

41:54

And it sounds really dramatic to say it,

41:58

but like, is kind of saying

41:59

screw world peace, screw democracy, all we care

42:01

about is your thumb scrolling,

42:03

scrolling, scrolling,

42:06

for hours and hours

42:08

until you don't realize how many hours

42:10

have gone. How do you trap someone

42:12

like that? You do it

42:14

by exploiting their brain chemistry and

42:16

by hitting them with more more controversial and

42:19

surprising and shocking

42:22

content, So that's what these algorithms

42:24

do, and I looked at these studies

42:26

that showed, say, you could

42:28

want to TikTok and you're putting

42:30

into the TikTok search bar healthy

42:33

diets or workout

42:36

regimes because you wanna just get

42:38

fit and you wanna have

42:39

a good diet. The studies by the Lowy

42:41

Institute, by the Guardian have found

42:44

that it's not that many hours

42:46

between you searching for

42:50

healthy eating recipes and then

42:52

you being hit with tons

42:54

of pro and Auryxia content.

42:56

Mhmm. And this is despite ticked

42:59

saying, oh, but we've banned those hashtags. We've

43:01

purge those accounts. It

43:04

doesn't take long. And the same

43:06

with a platform like YouTube and

43:08

I I take the reader down the rabbit hole with me. We've been

43:10

there. I

43:11

went down some very disgusting and

43:13

deep rabbit holes

43:15

in service of writing this book

43:17

and one of them was, again, searching for like healthy

43:19

eating recipes on YouTube and the

43:22

auto play function and the

43:24

algorithm can to

43:26

not long after you've searched

43:28

the salad recipes, hitting you

43:30

with a video of two young teenagers

43:33

making a salad and

43:36

kind of slowly introducing these

43:38

ideas about how healthy

43:40

eating and pure soil

43:43

and pure blood are connected. Mhmm. And then they have

43:45

millions of views and up votes and comments

43:48

and likes. And then the next

43:50

video is

43:52

an influencer Maybe she's a

43:54

young woman in Europe. She's also making a

43:56

salad. And she's starting to introduce

43:58

this idea

44:00

that whiteness is

44:00

purity and purity

44:01

is connected to a vegetarian

44:03

diet, then the next video reminds you

44:05

that Hitler was

44:08

a vegetarian Terry, which is actually false information, but that's what many

44:10

believe. And before long,

44:12

you fall down, it sounds absurd. It

44:15

is absurd, but that's how these algorithms function,

44:17

is that suddenly you're presented with these

44:19

ideas about white

44:22

supremacy and these radical ideas about fascism. Now my

44:24

thinking was okay, but none of those ideas

44:26

are new. Of course, we've had

44:28

fascism around

44:30

for millennia. what's new

44:32

and powerful and disturbing about social

44:34

media is you can be a twelve year

44:36

old kid. Might tell that story too. You

44:39

can be a twelve year old kid alone with your phone in

44:41

your bedroom, and you are presented with ideas that are not

44:43

new. We've had fascism forever.

44:46

but they're presented to you in a way that main

44:49

streams, these radical ideas.

44:51

So whereas your mom might

44:53

say, oh my gosh, be

44:56

a protest of, like, white supremacists on our

44:58

town isn't that disturbing. And you might say,

45:00

well, what's white supremacy and have

45:02

a conversation? If you are introduced

45:04

to this radical, my marginalized idea on social media,

45:06

it's mainstreaming the idea, and it's

45:08

presenting it to you not as absurd

45:12

but it's presenting to you in the context of a healthy eating video

45:14

about salad and vegetarianism and

45:16

pure blood and pure soil while

45:19

reminding you that a

45:22

million plus people have watched, liked, and

45:24

favorably commented on this idea and

45:26

on this video. And that's how we end up

45:28

with twelve

45:29

year olds who

45:30

the FBI rates their bedroom and finds a list

45:32

of mosques and synagogues that they want to

45:34

burn down. So that's the power of social

45:36

media, and that's what I want is all to be

45:40

aware of. Dr. Asteema Yasmin is our guest. She's an Emmy award winning

45:42

journalist, medical doctor, poet, and

45:44

author. Her book is called What

45:46

The Fact. Finding the truth

45:48

in

45:48

all the noise. SEMA, thank

45:50

you so much for your time with a great conversation. Thanks

45:52

for your great

45:53

questions, Courtney. You can find us

45:55

on Facebook, Twitter,

45:58

and in Instagram, just search for KERA Think and

45:59

subscribe to our podcast for free wherever

46:02

you get your podcasts. Just

46:03

search for k e

46:05

or anything. Once again, I'm Courtney Collins in for Chris

46:08

Boyd. Thanks so much for listening, and

46:10

have

46:11

a great day.