Staff Editorial
As Episcopal Academy students growing up in an era of false news and disinformation, we must learn how to determine when information is reliable. Our generation lives in a world where we are constantly exposed to news through our cell phones and social media, making it possible to create and falsify news, spread misinformation, or warp the truth of a story without fact checking. Especially in such a tumultuous and polarizing year with the COVID-19 pandemic and a presidential election, it is imperative that students learn to check their sources before further spreading false information that could have substantial impacts.
The influence of disinformation on the 2020 election reached new highs last week after the New York Post published unauthenticated emails suggesting that Joe Biden abused his power as vice president to enrich both him and his son, Hunter Biden, through the Ukranian company Barisma. There is absolutely no evidence corroborating the information found in these emails, and a Republican-led Senate committee found no wrongdoing in Joe Biden’s relationship with Barisma earlier this year. Based on these facts and others, the FBI is now investigating the possibility that the entire story is part of Russia’s disinformation campaign to harm Joe Biden’s candidacy.
Despite widespread repudiation, polls conducted after the Post’s story broke have shown Biden’s lead slimming, proving that misinformation like this could impact the outcome of the election. In fact, the Post’s article is just one part of a dangerous and undemocratic trend: Facebook estimates that there is more disinformation this year than in 2016, when over a hundred million Facebook users were exposed to Russian propaganda. Disinformation has also been widely spread by top political leaders like President Trump, who claimed that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraudulence, a claim directly rebutted by his own FBI director.
Pew Research Center estimates that 90% of teens, ages 13-17, have used social media, meaning that our generation is exposed to this sort of fake news more than anyone else. With the ability to spread that disinformation with a click, repost, or like, this generation of students must learn that our social media presence can have a major impact on the dissemination of news, especially as we reach voting age.
As a school, EA should continue to educate students about fact-checking and source reliability. Additionally, the school should continue to make students aware of the greater ramifications of their social media presence. But ultimately, the responsibility falls on us to make informed social media decisions, especially political ones, and to reduce the spread of disinformation among our fellow Americans.