Arab News Japan

Abu Dhabi: How do you confirm something you read online is fact or fiction? At the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi, Mark Albert of MediaAdvisoryExperts.com admitted it isn’t easy, but it can be possible.

“This is fact-checking in the disinformation age,” he stated, adding that the world is “awash in disinformation and misinformation.” This attack on truth, he says, is a byproduct of almost every major news story.

“[Disinformation] is really upsetting every society and every community around the globe,” Albert says, prompting media outlets to add sidebars to their articles to explain to readers why they think a story is factually true and so that readers can see the primary sources where the media outlets got their information from.

“We cannot control what somebody thinks or what somebody does with the information being provided,” Albert says. “We can’t control whether the person is going to believe us or not, whether a government is going to put their spin on it or not. All we can do is the best job that we can in incorporating fact-checking in every little thing we do.” However, he warns, the “truth” is relative.

“Our job is to do fact-checking to the best of our ability and put that content out there. Yes, we want to obtain the truth, but the more realistic goal is to obtain the most ascertainable version of the truth at that moment. In other words, the best version of truth we can find out right now, because sometimes the truth changes. The truth can change legitimately.”

While the Internet is often responsible for distributing disinformation and misinformation, Albert says it can also be the solution for checking what is true. “There are some resources that we can all use,” he said. As an example, he cites Google’s reverse image search to see if an image has previously been published and where it was published.

For information on planes and specifically plane crashes, Albert speaks highly of FlightRadar24 – “an incredibly powerful tool” – which tracks nearly all flights around the world in real time. The site is searchable by flight number, tail number, airline, or aircraft and gives information such as altitude, speed data, and geographical position. If a plane has been reported missing, it’s easy to find.

But, Albert warns, the Internet can also deceive people into believing false stories, with AI being one of the biggest culprits. Google, he says, is incorporating AI into its search engine and the results are not always positive.

“When I read those sometimes, they’re wildly inaccurate,” he says. “They’re just false. The problem is that some of the AI models are not distinguishing between truth and falsehoods. That is really something that I don’t think has been solved, and until it is solved, I would not rely solely on AI.”

Albert is scornful of social media and the lies it pushes out, very often for financial reward. “It is infuriating when people buy and spread this information for profit or clicks,” he says.

Traditional media, he says, is interested in facts, context, and analysis; this is journalism. They don’t aim to mislead with every article or try and stir up anger and rage, frustration, embarrassment, or humiliation. That is not the goal of journalism.

Online media often aim to create a visceral emotion, such as rage or anger, that aims to manipulate.

“If you feel these visceral emotions when you read something, take a step back and think, ‘Maybe I’m being misled right now.’ It’s on the consumer to make sure that they are not being duped,” Albert says. “Unfortunately, millions and millions of people are being consumed by fear right now. They just need to own what they think.”