By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – The power of social media can take the “shout fire in a movie theatre” cliche and send it worldwide in an instant.
“We know what types of people are susceptible to consuming misinformation,” University of Illinois sociology professor Kevin Leicht told a congressional hearing Tuesday. “We also know that combating misinformation is harder, the more misinformation is repeated; so it becomes harder and harder to stop.”
Illinois U.S. Reps. Bill Foster (D-Naperville) and Sean Casten (D-Downers Grove) were part of the committee.
Foster says misinformation causes damage to the extent of ethnic cleansing and, closer to home, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Leicht, the professor, said it’s hard to tell whether Facebook employees knew in advance of the attack and did not tell anyone, or if they simply were not paying attention.
Casten recalled being dissatisfied when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would not commit to him a few years ago that his platform would take down, for example, model Jenny McCarthy’s posts about vaccines.
Dave Dahl can be reached at News@WJBC.com.
