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I, the writer of this article, consider this subject is vital. It is crucial in any assessment or evaluation. Throughout my life I have used understanding misinformation to strengthen important decision-making, and to avoid risks. Vigilance aids loss-reduction.
Information:
What do we mean when we say “information”? We mean what we arrive at after inspecting, filtering and organising a lot of data to reach a logical conclusion or concept about someone, something or a place ( 1 ) . We consider data as the raw material for this objective, similar to miners’ work in excavating deep into earth to mine gold, silver and other precious metals. Normally we need information in every aspect of our daily activities in order to correctly invest our time and
efforts, especially in what concerns our work, health, family matters, and friendships. Information affects our interests, and its influences our perceptions. I would like to identify media as the most effective means of information in the present, more than it was in the past.
Making Information
This process starts in collecting data as aforementioned through the following main stages (2):
1. Data collecting
2. Data preparation
3. Data input
4. Processing
5. Data output or interpretation
Those are the basic steps that information seekers should go through to achieve their goal of creating and deploying it in each case. This process might be a wide or narrow range of investigation and search. Each stage needs the involvement of human intelligence.
We all know that information is essential to support decision-making in any company, business management (3) , leadership, and governmental entity. We even use information at a personal level especially when deciding whether to embark on a friendship, relationship, business venture, purchases, studying a subject or choosing a school or college. No one can deny the important difference between the above-mentioned types of decision-making. Accuracy varies, depending on the how apposite a decision is in relation to the information. All of us believe that the wisdom of a security measure is more important than common sense when buying a car; security is more important than buying a car. Making the right decision is more sensitive and vital when such a decision is at a governmental level as its impact will be wider and include a lot of people.
We should obviously clarify that decision-making should contribute to decrease in uncertainty ( 4 ). We aim for high profits, and avoidance of high risk. Other related factors might include financial considerations. Realising the importance of accurate information depends on the decision-maker’s experience in the related field, background, loyalty and other related circumstance in order to produce a satisfactory result. Contributory factors in this regard cannot be summarised in such a short article. They need specific research because we are discussing only “Misinformation” here, which we’ll discuss as follows.
Misinformation
On the flip side of information we have misinformation, the core subject of our article today. It definitely comprises misleading, confusing, incorrect and deceptive information whether by mistake or on purpose, and whether the perpetrator is a faulty process or unqualified person/party.
Disinformation might evolve to crimes like treason, conspiracy and so on depending on the perpetrator’s nature and circumstances.
Results of misinformation
The expected results of misinformation are a harmful impact on the party/ies involved, where incorrect or false information will be collected after processing the data. There can be negative effects on the public or audience as they may lose confidence in the government when ( 5 ) :
1. Addressing public health problems
2. Discussing climate change
3. Trying to maintain a stable democracy
As media became one of the most influential tools since the last century so it has been used for both information and misinformation. Abuse of media yields bad results. There are many historical stories and incidents arising from misinformation. Most of them were to do with countries’ state affairs including interior and exterior security matters, and conspiracy. The 1960’s might include the most obvious examples, especially of espionage wars between western intelligence agencies in the USA, UK, Germany, France and the then USSR which is now is represented by Russia.
If we can describe misinformation as unintentional fake news, we can imagine the accumulated effects of spreading it to the public through the media and may result in ( 6 ) :
1. Distrust in the media
2. Undermining the democratic process
3. Distrusting the political regime
4. Platforms for harmful conspiracy theories and hate speech
It will cause other types of results at a business or a company level, such as ( 7 ) :
1. Time and effort wasted
2. Financial squandering
3. Trust shaken
4. Business reputation deterioration
5. High risk and possible bankruptcy
One of the well-known business bankruptcy cases that can illustrate the above-mentioned results is the case of the American Huston-Texas based Enron Corporation ( 8 ) in October 2001 when the Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives misled Enron’s board of directors and audit committee on high-risk accounting practices. About $40 billion was involved. Arthur Andersen was persuaded to ignore the issues. This caused the fall of the company’s share price from $90 in mid-2000 to only $12 by the beginning of Nov. 2001.
We can also point out to other recognised international conflicts that clearly illustrate the impact of misinformation and how it affected people’s lives such as allegations about ( 9 ) :
1. the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border
2. the Armenia-Azerbaijan Border
3. Burma
4. Indonesia
5. the Philippines
Those are some examples on how both misinformation and disinformation affect people’s lives and political stability. Both definitely have large impacts on the economy and stability of people’s lives.
At the end of this short article about misinformation and disinformation we recognise they
affect our personal lives, especially our friendships and relations with other people around us. There
is no doubt that a transparent process of any collected data will play a significant role in determining
our decisions in this regard. The resources of such data are very important. Correct choices
reduce time and effort that will be spent at the later stage to filter them and form information. On
this aspect we have to consider that many of those types of relations are exposed continuously to
envy, gossip, and whatever damages our relations with others.
Buying a car or house, or making an investment, are very important matters that link to our financial status, where money is a very valuable asset that costs us or our loved ones a lot of effort and time to acquire. Then, we have to carefully inspect every tiny issue about a property, to avoid loss or worthless investment, and reduce the whole expenditure related to the project. Then we have to transparently investigate the aspects of it cited here ( 10 ) :
Location, area, built-up area, built up date, type of material, design, initial cost, present cost, renovation cost, proposed selling price in future, services available, utilities status, municipality related services, taxes and other matters that should contribute to lead to good information about that property in order to make a correct decision to buy or not to buy.
References:
1. Internet of Water Coalition, What are Data, Information, and Knowledge
2. Talend, What is data processing
3. Charles L. Citroen, P 493 – 501, December 2011, The role of information in strategic decision-making, international journal of information management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2011.02.005
4. Alec N. Sproten a , Carsten Diener b , Christian J. Fiebach c , Christiane Schwieren d , P 43-54, October 2018, Decision making and age: Factors influencing decision making under uncertainty, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2018.07.002
5. Misinformation and disinformation, American Phycological Association, https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-disinformation
6. University of Exeter, Consequences of fake news, https://libguides.exeter.ac.uk/fakenews
7. Steven Hunt and Stephanie Overby, Misinformation in Business: Don’t Eradicate, Educate, https://www.sap.com/portugal/insights/viewpoints/fighting-misinformation-in-business.html
8. Nick Leighton, Oct. 10 2023, Five Actions Companies Can Take to Stop the Spread of Dangerous Misinformation, Forbes.
9. Alexandra Stavros, Sarah Phalen, Sheriff Almakki, Moriah Nacionales-Tafoya, & Ramiro A. Garcia, P4, DISINFORMATION IN CONFLICT ENVIRONMENTS IN ASIA, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.
10. Brai Odion-Esene, Jun 21, 2023, What to Look For When Buying A House, Forbes
المعلومات المضللة
موضوع هذه المقالة مهمٌّ لي شخصياً وله دور كبير فيما يخص تقييم أو تثمين حالة ما من الحالات التي تمرُّ بي خصوصاً في عملية صنع القرار وقد اتخذ هذا الأمر مكانته المهمَّة تدريجياً حتَّى أصبح جزءاً لا يتجزأ من حياتي اليومية.
يتطلب الحديث عن “المعلومات” بحثاً علمياً يفيه حقه من الاهتمام والتوضيح نظراً لما لصحَّة المعلومة ومصداقيتها من تأثير كبير في عملية صنع القرار على مستوى الإدارة العامة في المصالح المختلفة الخاصَّة أو العامَّة من الشركات والمؤسِّسات وصولاً إلى المستوى الحكومي، وما لعملية صنع القرار من تأثير مهمٍّ على حياة الناس أو على بقاء الشركات أو المؤسَّسات الخاصة مستمرَّة بعطائها الصحيح.
إنَّ الحصول على المعلومات لا يأتي بسهولة بخاصَّة تلك المعلومات المطلوبة على مستوىً عالٍ وينتظرها صانع القرار ليتمكَّن من اتخاذ القرار الصحيح متفادياً ما يمكن أن يتحقَّق من خسائر مادية أو معنوية أو مجموعة المخاطر التي يمكن أن تؤثر على ما هو بصدد اتخاذ القرار حياله إذا لم يأخذ باعتباره التدقيق والتمحيص في فرز وتنقية كمِّ المعلومات العشوائية التي سيحصل عليها الفريق العامل ابتداءً.
في هذا المقال سنتحدَّث عن “المعلومات المزيَّفة أو غير الصحيحة” وعن أثرها السلبي على كثير من الأمور، وقد تؤدِّي في حالة من حالات تمدُّدها إلى أثر سلبي كبير على حياة الناس واستقرار الدول على المستوى الأعلى أو المؤسَّسات والشركات على المستوى الأدنى. ولا نغفل عن مدى تأثير المعلومات الزائفة أو المزيَّفة (عن عمد) في التلاعب بطبيعة العلاقات بين الأفراد في المجتمع وما يجري من تمرير بعض المعلومات عن هذا الفرد أو ذاك بغية تدمير علاقة ما بسبب الحسد أو الغيرة أو حب الأذى للآخرين من خلال الغيبة والنميمة التي تعدُّ من أهمّ الصفات الاجتماعية الخبيثة في هذا المجال.
ختاماً، إنَّ المدى الذي يمكن ان تؤثر فيه صحَّة المعلومات أو زيفها قد يكون أبعد ممَّا يمكن إدراكه في المنظور من المعقول لأنَّه قد يتجاوز هذا الحدَّ، وقد يقصد به التراكم البطيء على مدى سنوات كي تشكِّل المعلومات المزيَّفة طبقة عازلة كالصدأ عن المعلومات الحقيقية لعزل الناس عنها وإبقائهم تحت رحمة الإدارة سواء كان ذلك على مستوى المجتمعات والشعوب أو على مستوى المؤسَّسات والشركات.
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