Attack from Within: Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Misinformation

Summary

In the first episode of Misguided: The Podcast, host Matthew Facciani speaks with legal analyst and professor Barbara McQuade about the rise of misinformation and disinformation in the modern media landscape. They examine how technology accelerates the spread of false information, the erosion of public trust in institutions, and the role of transparency and community engagement in rebuilding that trust. McQuade highlights the need for both systemic reforms and individual action, emphasizing education and digital literacy as key tools for combating misinformation. The conversation ends on a hopeful note, recognizing the potential of younger generations to reshape the digital information space.

Barbara McQuade’s new book: Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America.

Sisters In Law Podcast

The Contrarian

Barbara McQuade on Threads and Bluesky

Keywords

misinformation, disinformation, media evolution, public trust, social media, community engagement, digital literacy, government transparency, combating misinformation, critical thinking, Barbara McQuade

Chapters

00:00 The Evolution of Media and Information

03:46 Misinformation in the Digital Age

05:57 Trust in Institutions and Public Confidence

10:01 Restoring Trust: Transparency and Local Engagement

12:39 The Role of Community and Local Media

16:22 Systemic Solutions to Combat Misinformation

19:22 Individual Actions Against Misinformation

24:22 Hope for the Future: The Next Generation

Transcript

Matthew Facciani (00:19)

Welcome everyone to Misguided the Podcast. I'm your host, Matthew Facciani.

I'm a social scientist studying how social and psychological forces shape our understanding of the world. On this show, we explore the latest insights from social science to uncover why we believe what we do, how misinformation spreads, and how we can think more critically. I'll share my own research and engage in thought-provoking conversations with experts from diverse fields, scholars, journalists, technologists, and more to examine the ever-evolving information landscape.

This podcast was inspired by my book, Misguided, where misinformation starts, how it spreads, and what to do about it, but it goes beyond those pages. Here, we dive deeper into the complex forces shaping our beliefs and decision making, exploring new ideas and perspectives in every episode.

Matthew Facciani (01:10)

If you're curious about the psychology of misinformation, the influence of social media,

or how to navigate today's complex media environment, in the right place. Before we dive into today's conversation, let me introduce you to my guest, Barbara McQuade. She's a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, legal analyst, and former US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. You may also recognize her as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, co-host of Sisters in Law podcast, and a contributor to the Contrarian Newsletter.

She's the author of Attack From Within, How Disinformation is Sabotaging America, a book that examines how the evolving media landscape and the rapid spread of misinformation are eroding public trust and institutions and what we can do about it. In today's episode, we'll discuss how misinformation and disinformation thrive in the modern media environment, the legal and societal consequences, and practical steps we could take to build a more informed society. I'm thrilled to have Barbara on the show, let's get into it.

Matthew Facciani (02:14)

before diving into the topic of misinformation and disinformation, I'd love to hear about your journey through the evolution of the information environment. So in your book, you mentioned interning with one of the very first online news companies back in the late 80s, which I found really fascinating. And then over the 90s and 2000s, you've done a lot of interviews on television and various media platforms. And now most recently, I know you

host your own podcast, Sisters in Law, and you've even joined this new subsack newsletter, The Contrarian. So I'd like to ask you from a big picture, how have you seen this media landscape evolve and what insights can you share about navigating these changes?

Barb (02:58)

Yeah, I think for me the evolution has been from maybe more care for accuracy and thoughtfulness into prioritizing urgency and speed. And that's something I first saw when I worked for this company. It was called Dow Jones News Retrieval. In the mid-80s, it was a summer internship. And at the time, you the idea that people would use their computers to receive news seemed kind of far-fetched. The goal was to...

provide news, world news, political news, US news, all kinds of news, that people who were investors would find valuable. And so they would pay for that resource to get up to the minute most accurate, timely, urgent information that they could use to inform their investment decisions. it comes at the expense of taking the time to think through things, of writing a longer piece that could provide more

content and nuance to things. And so, you know, that and then, you know, today's world of news received via the internet, I saw that evolution even as I worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office where we would get requests for comment on a story. And we might say, you know, when's your deadline? And they'd say, you know, 10 p.m. or something like that. And you'd have all day to kind of think through what are the stakes here? Who are the stakeholders? We have victims.

Will a comment in any way harm them? Are there other ongoing aspects of this investigation that could be harmed if we speak? Are there fair trial rights of a defendant that could be affected if we were to comment on this thing? We need to talk to other stakeholders, other investigative agencies. And so, by the end of the day, we were either able to say, I'm sorry, we can't comment, or to provide something valuable to provide context and information for readers. Now...

by the end of the time I served as U.S. attorney, you would get a message saying, would you like to comment our stories going live in 10 minutes? And you'd can't get you a comment that quickly. They say, all well, we'll get it in the next round. And so there's this urgency to get an answer. And then the first version of the story did not contain your response. And so that might fly around the internet without any response from you. So I saw this evolution. And I think my move to podcasting,

and to the contrarian is an effort to get away from that fast and short is better model. I understand it has a place in society. People need to know breaking news when it happens, but just because something is new does not mean it is important. And so I hope that my work in my podcast, Sisters in Law and with the contrarian gives me space to spend a little more time on substance so that people can think about

news and not just react to it.

Matthew Facciani (05:46)

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. that connects to my next question. So connecting this to misinformation. So how have those experiences in this evolving media landscape affected your thoughts on misinformation and then how misinformation can spread through these newer forms of media? And what can we do to kind of counteract that?

Barb (06:04)

So I think that speed and that expectation of instantaneous news fosters a home for disinformation and misinformation. And just to clarify how I use those two terms, I use disinformation to mean the deliberate use of lies to advance some sort of agenda and misinformation, sort of its unwitting cousin, know, somebody who reads something they believe to be false and then shares it online, further advancing that false claim, but they do so innocently without realizing.

that the claim is false. But technology now allows people to send any content, unedited, unreviewed by any sort of gatekeeper, across the world to reach millions of people in an instant, and we can do so anonymously. And so that really opens the floodgates for disinformation. And as we've seen, there are people out there who will exploit that. The Russian Internet Research Agency in 2016, by creating false personas online of

purportedly American users saying all kinds of things to sow discord and undermine public confidence in the elections and disparage candidates to just this election cycle when we saw a Russian group using artificial intelligence to create fake web pages that look like the Washington Post or Fox News and then fill those pages with false content that advanced Russian interests, know, undermining Ukraine in the war and sharing its views in the presidential race.

So the technology, I think, is really facilitating and driving that urgency. But I think one of the collateral consequences is that it really is sort of a petri dish where disinformation can really grow and thrive.

Matthew Facciani (07:47)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The speed and the scale that miss and disinformation can be achieved today is really staggering.

It can be really overwhelming when you look at the Internet and you see so much stuff, this information overload, and a lot of that connects to erosion and trust in what we see online and just erosion and trust in general. that connects to the next thing I wanted to ask you about, because in your book you highlight this connection between misinformation and the decline of public trust in various institutions. And I want to ask you first,

what key factors or benchmarks should we consider when assessing the trustworthiness of legal and other institutions? What can the average person look for to see if these institutions are doing what they should be doing?

Barb (08:31)

Yeah, well, there are indices. Joyce Vance at the contrarian is putting together a democracy index to help measure in a quantifiable way some of the erosion of our democratic institutions. But there are survey groups that survey public trust in courts and in the executive branch, in the president and other things. And we have seen all of those measures dip to an all time low. And I believe that there are a number of things that may contribute to it.

But disinformation has to be one of them because America is not alone. This is something that has been happening worldwide. And one of the goals of disinformers or people seeking to seize power is to confuse people and to undermine trust in the status quo. So, you know, right now there's all kinds of false claims out there about the Los Angeles wildfires. There are claims that this person or that person is a suspected arsonist. There are claims that

look, here's a guy looting and in fact he's just removing property from his own home. Or there's even a conspiracy theory going around that it was the government that started the fires using lasers to start the fires. All kinds of things. And what's dangerous about that is it's not just sort of fun and games fantasy. It has real world consequences because first responders say it causes people to lose trust in government and lose trust in them.

We saw this during hurricane recovery in the fall with Hurricane Helene. There were all kinds of false claims about FEMA that they'd used up all the money supporting undocumented immigrants or that they were turning people away and they were bulldozing homes if you filed a claim. All of those things caused people to refrain from seeking help when they really needed it or filing a claim or even harassing and threatening the workers who were there to provide relief. And so all of these things can have

very detrimental consequences to society. And I think that there can be measures of things. But the key indicators I think we should be looking for are government itself needs to be speaking. Government itself needs to be transparent so that we can understand what's happening. We need to see behind the curtain. Certainly there's some information that needs to be protected and classified. But I think the more government agencies can explain their work, the better off we'll be.

I think that, for example, the work that the Department of Justice did to charge Donald Trump with both stealing government documents and interfering in the January 6 election is very laudable work. But if I am to fault them, I think it is their failure to communicate to the public all of the things that they were doing. I think if Jack Smith, perhaps, had spoken more about his work, sticking to the confines of his documents. He spoke just when he issued indictments and that was it and said, I'll speak through my documents.

But it's very difficult to push back against a firehose of false claims when all you do is speak through your filings. And I think that in the future, government agencies need to do a better job of informing the public about what they're doing in an effort to fend off some of that loss of public confidence.

Matthew Facciani (11:32)

Yeah, absolutely. Transparency seems like a major factor that can improve across various institutions. Just people want to know what's happening behind those curtains. And I think there is some defensiveness because of the criticism they receive and disinformation campaigns. But ultimately, transparency, think, would help a lot. Are there any other factors that you think could help regain this trust that's been lost? Is there anything that...

these institutions, legal institutions or government agencies, what else can they do to try and regain this trust that was lost?

Barb (12:05)

Yeah, I'm a little worried about the future of our federal government, frankly, in the next four years. When we have a president who has come in and propagated so many false claims about the very government he seeks to lead, I worry about how we're going to restore trust there. I suppose what they need to do is do the jobs the Constitution and the laws outline for them to do. Certainly there can be policy differences on all kinds of issues like...

immigration and law enforcement priorities. But we see Pam Bondi, the attorney general nominee, saying things like, we need to investigate the investigators and prosecute the prosecutors, the bad ones. We need to stop the weaponization and politicization of the Department of Justice. Those things contribute, I think, to that loss of public confidence. And so I'm a little worried there, but I think our state governments can be a place

where we can turn for service and for a restoration of public confidence in what's happening. State governments, I think, can do a number of things. Many of these rescue operations are being run out of state and county governments. I saw firefighters talking about what people should do. Those kinds of credible voices, and sometimes the more local the voice.

the more credible because people will say, I know that person or that person wears the badge I see on the car that drives by my house. Those people, I think, can be good spokespeople. So getting out and communicating to people, I think, is very important and explaining what they're doing and what they want the public to do to protect public safety, I think, can be very helpful.

Matthew Facciani (13:46)

I've definitely heard several people talk about how all politics is national level, like so much of people and how they consume media looks at these national headlines, just focusing on the federal level or the presidency. Whereas they can have much more of a direct impact on their local communities, right? And actually see the policymakers in action and actually maybe even get to meet them at the local level. And hopefully, you know, having a community that

connects

with these policymakers and government officials at a local level will help build trust kind of from a bottom up approach too, if we can have more of those community partnerships and collaboration. I guess that's one thing that I think about is starting at a local level and also working with our neighbors too and connecting with each other that way.

Barb (14:36)

Yeah, I know this is something you address in your book when you talk about some of the social aspects of disinformation. And I think it's one of the things that has been lost in current society for a number of reasons. mean, the pandemic caused people to shrink and engage less in public. I think some of that has come back, but not all of it. The capability to communicate online through virtual meetings has caused people to work more from home.

to have fewer meetings in person. I know I'm on a number of boards that now meets via Zoom instead of in person. And although we all appreciate the save in time of commuting, I think we've lost something in terms of the camaraderie and relationships that we had before when we met in person. And I think all of that contributes to distrust. One other thing at the local level that is contributing to this distrust, I think, is the loss of local media.

We live in an age when everybody wants to maximize profits and squeeze out every penny we can get. And it is no longer lucrative for small newspapers to operate in the midst of these enormous media giants. And so they either dry up or they get bought out by hedge funds, stripped of assets, every penny squeezed out and eventually closed. And those local media outlets, I think, are also really important toward building community.

They cover the city council meeting in a credible way. Without them, we're left to some blogger with an axe to grind to tell us what happened at a local municipal meeting. But they can also be a source of pride and a source of community building when they talk about the team that won the football championship or the kid who won a prize at the science fair. Those are things that we can all rally around, talk about at the corner coffee shop. And we're losing that. And I think we need to find ways to get out there and engage with each other.

Matthew Facciani (16:24)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. mean, yeah, it's definitely the perspective I take is looking at that social element of misinformation and susceptibility to misinformation. And ultimately, if we are more connected with each other, it reduces polarization and kind of turns down the heat of viewing your neighbors as potential enemies. If you get to know them as people, you can see how much you have in common with them.

Barb (16:45)

Yeah, absolutely right. You know, there's a great book called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam written in, I think, 2000. And he talked about how people had stopped joining things. You bowling leagues is his ultimate example. But labor unions, church groups, scouting clubs, Kiwanis, Rotary, all of these kinds of organizations where people meet across difference. You might, you know, meet Republicans and Democrats. We'll be working together to build a

a park playground. they realize they have far more in common than they have differences. They may disagree on what the size of the federal government ought to be, but they agree that kids should have a safe place to play in their neighborhood. And those kinds of common bonds, I think, can help us withstand those moments of disagreement. Robert Putnam attributed the decline in joining organizations to television, that it was a lot easier to stay home on your couch and watch what's on TV.

And now today we have, of course, the internet, which is, think, even more addictive than television was, the ability to connect online without ever leaving our homes. And I think, you know, I have hope though, because, you the internet is still kind of in its infancy. It's only been around for 20 years or less. And I think we're going through some growing pains with it. We are seeing, you know, we saw all the upsides and now we're seeing some of the downsides to living our lives online. And I'm hopeful that we will return to seeing the virtue.

of joining, being in groups, participating, getting to know our neighbors, all of those kinds of things that are so important to living in a healthy society.

Matthew Facciani (18:16)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about, kind of as we think about potential solutions, one thing I really liked in your book is how you both approach the individual and systemic aspects of disinformation and misinformation and talked about solutions from both angles. So first off, I want to start from a broader perspective. What strategies do you believe are most effective in combating misinformation at a systemic level, particularly while upholding the protections of the First Amendment?

Barb (18:46)

I think that as long as we have private companies controlling these incredibly important communications channels, we need to introduce some regulation into their processes. Now that is not to say we need to tell them what to write and what to post and what not to post. I'm not suggesting we in any way censor their content, which I think would run afoul of the First Amendment. Instead, I think we can look at the processes. You know, there was this Facebook whistleblower named Francis Hougans.

She was a former data scientist there. And she testified before Congress about how it wasn't the content that was so toxic on Facebook. It was the algorithms. Because Facebook had the ability to control these algorithms and to tune up the rage. They realized that by promoting content that elicited outrage, they could keep users online for longer. And the longer someone was online, the more they saw

ads and the more they saw ads the more they could charge for their ads. in a way outrage equaled money for Facebook. And so why couldn't we in some way regulate those algorithms? Maybe if they're proprietary they get reviewed by a federal agency like the Federal Trade Commission or some other agency that can review them and see that they run within a certain range and are not designed to crank up the outrage. I think that's one thing that we can do. I think we can also

help avoid the micro targeting that goes on where someone builds a dossier about you. They know everything about you because of your likes, your shares, your posts. They know more about you than you know yourself. These days I'm getting all kinds of ads for Detroit Lions jerseys. Yes, I would like a Detroit Lions jersey. How did you know? In fact, it's even the jersey of wide receiver Amanra St. Brown. Yes, how did you know? It's because I've been posting pictures of him standing on his head in the end zone.

They know that, so they can micro-target me. Why can't we have regulations and laws that forbid or regulate the way they collect our private data and then sell it to data brokers, who in turn sell it to commercial enterprises and political operatives to use against us as a weapon? I think that's something we can do. I also think we can rid social media platforms of the bots that are out there that look like real people.

but are instead AI-generated users that are picking fights with people or amplifying disinformation. I think if we could regulate those three things, I think could make a huge dent in the amount of disinformation that we're seeing on

Matthew Facciani (21:23)

So then moving to a more of an individual level, what actions can the average person listening to this take to contribute to this effort in combating misinformation in their daily lives?

Barb (21:35)

Well, I think the first thing we can do is learn to be better consumers of media. In Finland, they have introduced into the public schools courses on identifying disinformation, media literacy. And I think that's something all of us has the power to do ourselves. We don't have to wait for it to be implemented in our schools or in our civic institutions, though that would be a great thing. But I think we can educate ourselves right now about some of those things because

You know, we see things online and either we fall for a false claim about what's causing the wildfires in Los Angeles, or we become so skeptical that we don't believe anything we see online. And that also is dangerous because it causes us to become exhausted and cynical and to disengage from politics altogether, which is also a very dangerous thing in a democracy. So instead, I think we should arm ourselves

with the skills to be able to discern false from true information online. So there are a number of things we can do. Number one, what is the credibility of the communicator? Who is this who's saying this to me? Is this somebody with a name like PatriotGirl76 whose identity I have no idea, or is it a trusted media brand that I find to be credible? is it the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or CNN or National Public Radio?

or whatever journalistic outlet I find credible, that might help me to find something more believable. What is the claim? Is this a claim that is supported by evidence? When I was a prosecutor and I went to court, I couldn't just make stuff up. I had to say, we know this is true because it is supported by this data or by this expert who has testified to this thing. So what is the evidence to support a claim? That's another thing.

that we should be looking at. If it is something that is new and outrageous, we should be looking for a second source. Is this the only place I've read about this thing or has it been reported in other media outlets as well? Because that, I think, is a signal that something may not be true. There are a number of other strategies. I talk about them in my book. People can find them online. Good strategies for identifying false information and being a literate consumer of news.

But there's one other thing I think that Matthew that people can do individuals and that is not Piling on into the social discord because that is one of the real goals of disinformation When Robert Mueller wrote his report about the Internet Research Agency He said one of the goals was just to get people fighting with each other They look for all of the hot-button issues in society immigration abortion guns race

the LGBTQ community. And then they would post things on both sides of those debates saying, you know, awful, hideous things just to bait people into fighting with them. And it immediately degrades into insults and all kinds of, you know, base commentary that is not the best of us. I think that we need to show restraint in our own lives when we see that stuff to recognize.

Look, they're just baiting me. There's no value that comes from fighting with an internet troll. I think if we can model civil discourse, it won't eliminate all the trolls, but I think we can avoid contributing to it in the downward spiral that that kind of dialogue can foster.

Matthew Facciani (24:57)

And as you mentioned earlier, you know, how that connects to the algorithms whenever we interact with these negative conversations, the trolling, we boost it in the algorithm and then more people see it, more people click on it and it just spirals and snowballs. So yeah, I definitely am a big advocate for this idea of what's called critical ignoring. So ignoring stuff online as opposed to not just critical thinking, but also being mindful of what we interact.

Barb (25:16)

Yeah.

Matthew Facciani (25:22)

with our digital lives.

Barb (25:25)

I love

that it has a name critical ignoring because it sounds so much better than doing nothing. I often tell my students that sometimes when you're in litigation, you need to engage in strategic patience. You know, when you're negotiating something, want like, you want it to just be done. You want something to happen, but sometimes you're bidding against yourself. If you keep talking, you know, you need to wait maybe days, maybe weeks for this negotiation. And so you're not doing nothing. You're engaging in strategic patience. And in the same way, I like this idea of critical ignoring. You're not doing nothing.

Matthew Facciani (25:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

You

Right.

Barb (25:52)

You are engaging in critical ignoring, which is an important strategy. So thank you for that.

Matthew Facciani (25:57)

Yeah, yeah. So we've talked about a lot of different things and given everything that we've discussed about misinformation, trust in institutions and the evolving media landscape, what gives you the most hope for the future? Are there any key changes or efforts you see as especially promising in a fight against misinformation?

Barb (26:16)

I think the thing that gives me the most hope is I'm surrounded by law students every day. And I think they give me hope because they're so savvy. So many of these, the people I know who fall for disinformation are probably people of my generation. I'm middle-aged if people live to be 120. But I deal with a lot of students and they're pretty savvy about the internet. Many of them grew up in a digital world.

They give me hope that we can overcome this moment. As we said earlier, the internet is still in its infancy and I think we have yet to figure out all the ways that it's going to play out. It is incredibly useful and valuable tool, but it also has these dangers like any invention, right? When the Wright brothers invented the airplane, they also invented the plane crash. Everything that has an upside also has a potential misuse and we need to work through those ways.

You know, as a result, we created the FAA, which regulates aviation to make sure that only trained pilots are flying planes and that the planes meet up to safety codes and that there are air traffic controllers figuring out the right flight path. I think at some point we are going to realize that we need to have the same kinds of guardrails around social media. And I am hopeful that some of today's young people who have our digital natives will be the ones to figure this out.

Matthew Facciani (27:35)

Yeah, absolutely. think that's a great point to end on. We're still so early and new to this internet and digital space that we do have time to hopefully figure it out. I think looking at the younger generation and all the amazing things that they've already done also gives me hope too. So thank you for sharing that. And thank you so much for joining me on my podcast today.

Barb (27:57)

Thanks, Matthew, and thanks for all your important work in the field of disinformation.

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