From flat earthers, sovereign citizens, anti-vaxxers, to climate change denialism, the gamut of conspiracy theories and misinformation runs from the absurd to the seemingly plausible—depending on who is exposed to it and what they already believe.

The challenge, said experts, is that misinformation runs across all political spectrums, across all nations, and poses a global threat to the health and democracy of the world.

That threat is a generational one, said professor Timothy Caulfield, who along with other science communicators launched a campaign on Nov. 12 at Science Centres across the nation to arm Canadians, and Calgarians, with the tools to defeat misinformation.

“We know that the spread of misinformation is doing harm to individuals, and is doing harm to communities. It’s hurting people’s health. You know, I often say misinformation is killing people, and that may feel like hyperbole but it’s not. We have good research to back up that,” he said.

“Of course, misinformation is also hurting democracies. It’s having an adverse impact on not just local governments, but national governments.”

He said that a particular challenge that experts in the research of misinformation have been seeing is the ever-increasing tie between ideology and misinformation, which makes it harder to combat untruths.

“Once it becomes about ideology, it becomes much more difficult to change people’s minds. Because it’s about who they are. It’s about their personal identity. In addition to that, the misinformation becomes legitimized, it becomes normalized,” Caulfield said.

“We’ve seen that in the United States. We’ve certainly seen it right here in Alberta. That, I think, is also also really problematic. But we can’t give up the fight, even though it gets more challenging. That just means we have to figure out ways that we can actually break through.”

Professor Caulfield, along with Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Melissa Lem, and science communicator Anthony Morgan are among those experts aiming to help Calgarians with a two-pronged approach to addressing misinformation through Together Against Misinformation, from ScienceUpFirst.

Prong one is using pre-bunking—effectively pre-debunking misinformation claims—and debunking, while the second prong is to enhance critical thinking skills, improve media literacy, and nudge regulatory policy.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean curtailing freedom of expression—I’m a big supporter of freedom of expression—that might mean more transparency for the algorithms that are used to push misinformation. That might mean very specific kinds of regulatory policy around the deployment of AI,” said Caulfield.

“The good news is, studies tell us that if you do that, if you use multiple tools, you can make a difference. In fact, there was a study that came out very recently from MIT, from a colleague of mine, that found exactly if you use both pre-bunks and you use accuracy nudges and use them together, you can make a difference.”

Moving the needle back to more information, not less

The long-term effects of misinformation, especially in the medical space, would be catastrophic if allowed to go unchecked, said Dr. Gunter.

“We’re worried now with the with the election, that if RFK Jr is given access to any kind of position of power which it looks like he’s going to, that that decades, almost centuries of work could be undone,” she said.

“We’re talking about unpasteurized milk. We’re talking about unproven use of stem cells, things where people have died from harm. We’re talking about taking away regulations from things that protect us. We’ve had outbreaks of listeria in the United States. So, I think, unfortunately, in the US, we are heading into a public health disaster.

“I think it’s really important for people in Canada to know that. There have been a lot of private member bills from the Conservative Party to try to move the needle on abortion. Whenever that’s there, whenever people have been thinking about it, that means they’ve been thinking about it for decades.”

She said that closer to home in Alberta, moves to make sex education opt-in rather than opt-out would create a situation where young people would still go looking for that information, but it would be misinformation that would fill the knowledge gap.

“This idea that education is harmful, I mean, we teach people how to drive safely, and that doesn’t cause more car accidents. It doesn’t make 14-year-olds go out and steal cars. In fact, study after study tells us when people are more educated about their bodies, they actually make choices that that are healthier for them,” said Dr. Gunter.

“Then you have an issue where we have difficulty accessing primary care providers. People can’t get into their family doctors, so now they don’t even know they have a medical condition, and all of a sudden now they’re on TikTok looking for information. It’s really a recipe for disaster.”

She said that Together Against Misinformation was about helping to give tools to recognize, organize, and educate against misinformation.

“With propaganda, it can be really difficult to know where to go. So, who are the actual experts you should be looking to? What you should do in the face of misinformation? How should you fact-check everything that you get?” Dr. Gunter said.

“If we can learn to be not a distracted driver, we can learn to not be a distracted health care consumer.”

Trust in experts and institutions that are providing quality, fact-based, science-based information was also a key goal, said Dr. Gunter.

“Conspiracy theories are a really potent tool of fascism, and destroying trust in recognized good institutions is a tool of fascism. What we need to do is people need to understand that the people who work at Health Canada, these aren’t career politicians. These are people who have dedicated their lives to science, that want people to have accurate, factual information,” she said.

“I think the best thing that we can do is get some of our scientists out in front of people so they can actually talk to some of the people doing all this great research.”

Together Against Misinformation kicks off at the Central Library on Nov. 12, followed by talks both online and in person across the nation until Nov. 17.

For more information, and for expert-verified resources, see scienceupfirst.com/event/together-against-misinformation.