I was at an event the other night for a sneak-peak preview of Factmata’s new counter-fake-news tool, briefr, and during a typical conversation with other attendees there I found myself mentioning the fact that the skeptic community have been fighting this fight for decades, and that the journalists, academics and entrepreneurs coming into this fake news/disinformation/misinformation space really should be paying more attention to what the skeptics have already done before them, so as to avoid repeating the same mistakes and hopefully progress from where we are.

The reaction to that was: “Wait, what? There is a skeptic community?”

So, first and foremost, let me say: Yes, there is a skeptic community.

Of course, it isn’t really a single entity, there is no leader (though I’d say James Randi came pretty damn close until he retired a few years ago), and there is no single organisation or website, or anything unifying about it, other than its core philosophical ideals: that beliefs should be evidence based and reasonably justifiable, and therefore, usually, science based (to drastically oversimplify it).

(just a quick cheap joke, courtesy of Tim Minchin)

Outside of that core unifying principle, the reality of the skeptic community is just random ad hoc assemblages of small groups of people gathering for local events, subscribing to skeptic magazines and mailing lists, listening to skeptic podcasts, attending skeptic conferences, and participating in skeptical activism.

Classic herding of cats.

But here is the thing — the skeptic community is a massive army of individuals who feel strongly motivated to correct misinformation and defend accuracy of claims and evidence in a large range of fields. And they have been doing it since long before the Internet existed.

And they were doing it while the internet evolved into a global phenomenon.

And they were doing it as web 2.0 took shape and social media became the normal way of sharing (mis)information.

And they are still doing it now that the rest of the world has finally figured out that misinformation is actually a serious threat to society.

So, what can we learn from them?

First lesson: They haven’t solved the problem.

They really haven’t solved any of the problems, actually.

For example, James Randi exposed Uri Geller on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show show back in 1973, and not only did it do nothing to deter people from believing in psychic powers, but it didn’t even stop Uri Geller from continuing to tour and make millions of dollars from his nonsense tricks. Uri Geller has even hosted TV shows as recently as 2008.

Apparently simply revealing the truth, even in very clear, and public ways, doesn’t do a lot to correct false beliefs or stop the misinformation which comes from them.

It is somewhat disheartening to think of all of the time spent by skeptics exposing fraudsters and scam artists over the years, and all of the effort put into correcting faulty beliefs and popular misconceptions, and to still find ourselves in the position we do. It’s all still there. All the crazy beliefs, and all the superstition, and wishful thinking, and faith-despite-counter-evidence.

In no way am I disparaging the effectiveness of what the skeptics do — what I am saying is that what you see today is what we get after the skeptical effort has been added to the equation. ie: It would likely be significantly worse if skeptics weren’t exposing fraudsters and warning people about harmful fads, and expensive but pointless products.

The point I am making is that if you are not already taking into consideration that this almost-invisible army of skeptics are constantly fighting back the tide of misinformation on our behalf every day, then you might be tempted to think that you could make a significant dent in misinformation… if you could just get enough people to start pushing back against it!

But no. Evidence is at hand. We have an army of those people already fighting for us, and that is our starting line…not the finish line.

If you want to make things better, you will have to come up with something different to what we are already doing. You will have to come up with a new idea which offers more than what is already happening.

(Oh, and before I move on to the next topic, just try and tell me Michael Marshal wasn’t well ahead of the curve on the #FakeNews problem with his BadPR blog and presentations from back in 2011 and earlier:

Second Lesson: We’ve been trying ‘new stuff’ for a long time already.

One of the hardest things for me to watch as the #FakeNews phenomenon took off, was all of the people flooding into the space with New Ideas™ to solve the problem. They all seemed to get a ton of press coverage for how this “brash new optimistic someone is going to finally do what Facebook couldn’t!” etc, despite completely overlooking the fact that it has all already been done… and failed (to one degree or another).

If we don’t learn from the past… we are doomed to repeat it. Apparently.

It makes me quite sad to think of how much time and money has been (and continues to be) wasted on projects which can pretty easily be shown to have no chance of success. And just to be clear, by success, I very specifically mean success of having a significant impact against misinformation. Pivoting to a profitable startup which doesn’t affect the dangers we face from misinformation may make a successful company, but is of little use to the specific problem I am concerned with here.

The one caveat that I have to make as I say that… is that innovation, and startups, aren’t always what they appear. Twitter didn’t start as the Twitter we now know it to be, and the original concept sounded pretty dumb to me (and most people, I believe). So, contrary to what I have just said, there is value in bringing in lots of new people, with new ways of thinking into a space like this and giving them money to work on their projects — even if the projects begin as repetitions of already tried and failed projects — because they could accidentally pivot to something which will actually work.

For all of our belief in our ability to self-determine and intentionally create things, we really are just a memetic evolutionary process. Random thought-accidents being selected by some obscure, invisible, selection process, only to be post hoc rationalised into stories about why the victors were so much smarter or better than all of the people who failed, largely ignoring all of the luck and random chance involved in the process.

Sorry, wrong essay. Where was I?

Yes, learn from those who came before us, and save time, money and energy! And hopefully we’ll all get to a viable solution faster! Because time really is of the essence now.

Resources!

The beauty of having this community of people who have been fighting this fight for so long, is that they have done a heap of work putting together resources and tools to help find what you need!

Did you know that Tim Farley maintained a blog for many years which kept track of all of the apps that skeptics could use to fight misinformation? Unfortunately he doesn’t maintain it anymore, and there is no single list of tools that are easily linked to, but that is in large part because of the problem mentioned above: They tend to disappear after a short period of time as the founders/creators run out of steam, money, time and/or enthusiasm for the project.

Another resource which I have co-opted myself because of my work with rbutr, doesn’t actually come from the skeptical community itself, but seems worth dropping here because it is still so relevant. Dan Whaley, founder of Hypothes.is attempted to track all of the efforts to build web annotation applications over the years so he could learn from their mistakes (smart smart smart smart smart). I started to maintain a copy of the list when it seemed like Dan had stopped doing so, and vaguely continued to do so with the new ‘fake news’ apps too. You can see it here. (Though my recent article cataloguing efforts to solve misinformation is probably the better reference point now.)

Activism!

Got an idea which you just need a heap of people to help you out with? Skeptics have probably already tried a version of it, or otherwise, might have exactly the community of people you need ready and waiting to help out.

The Newspapers on Wikipedia (NOW) project came across my path recently, and I was excited to be able to introduce them to the Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project and its organiser, Susan Gerbic. I doubt there are many other people out there who could even come close to the experience Susan has in training people, and guiding them into becoming high quality Wikipedia editors, and keeping them active. Part of the reason for that, is that it isn’t a simple job and requires a lot of constant attention and support for every new member . Editing Wikipedia, as ‘easy’ as it is, isn’t actually that easy to do well enough to ensure your edits and additions are kept and maintained by the wider Wikipedia community. New editors frequently lose enthusiasm very quickly without constant nudges and prompts to keep going.

The NOW project has the advantage of being able to use the captive audience of students, but I think there will still be immense value in the hands on experience that Susan has gained from more than five years of doing this work.

So, be sure to check to see if active communities already exist within or around any projects you want to create which involve mobilisation of large groups of people. There could be an active skeptic group already working in that space who you can learn from, or who may be able to help out in other ways, like providing volunteers, educators, etc.

Professionals vs Practitioners

There are actually a lot of professionals in the skeptic community — qualified scientists, engineers, journalists etc. But there are also a lot of laypeople. Don’t let the lack of qualifications of these people fool you. Sometimes several years of hands on experience doing a series of simple tasks in order to bring about a definitive and measurable outcome, can me infinitely more valuable than all of the theory in the world.

Bring that real world experience into your projects, into your research, and into your thinking. Learn from the people at the coal face.

Misinformation isn’t a theoretical thing. It’s a very real thing very strongly tied with normal people and the things they believe. And if you’re not able to get out there and experience those normal people, and the beliefs they hold, then go and attend some skeptic events and listen to the stories that they have… because they are actually out there, talking and interacting with normal people… and the things they believe.