Social media has become an integral part of modern communications, providing valuable information to businesses and individuals. Unfortunately, some of that information is just plain wrong or misleading.
Social media platforms deliver a lot of helpful, actionable information for both professional and personal use. But there’s no shortage of unreliable data and false information out there—and that can lead to serious negative consequences. In the financial field, for example, a false report can quickly lower the value of stocks. In the scientific sphere, misinformation or unreliable data can slow down important research, even producing false conclusions. As a result, it’s critical for businesses and users to know how to gauge the accuracy of social media information. The following recommendations can help your business and your social media or PR team.
SEE: Social media policy (TechRepublic Premium)
When it comes to evaluating the veracity and reliability of information on social media, users should raise some basic questions.
SEE: 9 key security threats that organizations will face in 2022 (TechRepublic)
Figure A
Figure B
A great number of tools are available online to dig more into fact checking and verify the authenticity of data. Bellingcat maintains an Online Investigation Toolkit page that lists a lot of these tools and services. While some are easy to use, others need a bit of technical knowledge and are more appropriate for information professionals. First Draft also maintains such a page, and the Verification Handbook for disinformation and media manipulation is a good resource.
Deepfakes are images, videos or audio data that are so cleverly altered by artificial intelligence generative adversarial networks to look like someone else that it’s hard to tell they’re not real. Fake content has existed for many years, but deepfakes take it one step further by leveraging machine learning and AI.
SEE: Deepfake reality check: AI avatars set to transform business and education outreach (TechRepublic)
Microsoft and other companies are currently working on systems that can tell if a video or photo has been tampered with—or not. These systems, instead of proving that a content has been tampered with, will prove that a content has not been altered.
False news and misinformation can lead companies working in competitive fields to modify their plans, alter their roadmaps, and change the release date of their products. It can also cause customer loss or have a strong financial impact.
As an example, the case of a 62-year old Scottish trader shows how easy it can be to manipulate stocks. The trader created Twitter accounts looking like real Twitter accounts of well-known securities research firms, before starting to tweet about two particular companies. He suggested in several tweets that one of the companies was under federal investigation, making its share price fall by 28% before the Nasdaq temporarily halted trading. He then produced the same kind of tweets to target another small company, whose share price dropped by 16%. Several tweets from a few Twitter accounts affected shareholders, who lost more than $1.6 million.
Other cases have shown that distributing misinformation and fake news to manipulate companies, customers, investors and shareholders is becoming increasingly common.
It takes different levels of expertise to get evidence that determines whether information is true; however, most of the misinformation spread on social media is easy to spot with the techniques and advice discussed in this article. If you find what you believe is fake news, you can help stop its spread; for instance, you can report misinformation about the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.
Disclosure: I work for Trend Micro, but the views expressed in this article are mine.
Cedric Pernet is a senior threat expert with a strong focus on cybercrime and cyberespionage. He currently works at Trend Micro. Prior to that position, he worked for several Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) where he did threat intelligence investigations, incident response, and computer forensics. He was also a Law Enforcement Officer working on Cybercrime in France. He is the author of a paperbook in French language on cyberespionage and an influential person in the cybersecurity community.
