Modern Media Literacy: Why Do We Believe Everything We See Online?
Did you know that Mason Ramsey — the famous “yodeling boy” whose video went viral after yodeling in a Walmart in 2018 — donated all of his profits from fame to the Family Equality Council nonprofit for LGBTQ+ families?
Sound hard to believe? That’s because it’s not true.
TikTok creator @aiden4adderal simply made up this lie as a social experiment to see just how easy it would be for a simple rumor to spread and propagate on the app. In just a few days following the posting of the since-deleted TikTok video, millions of people had viewed and shared the lie. Thousands of users had also “stitched” the video commenting on how much they love Ramsey even more now, allowing the lie to multiply and reach even more people. The creator even followed up the claim with a second TikTok video showing a photoshopped screenshot of a Tweet supposedly posted by Ramsey, further solidifying the lie as true.
Of the millions of users who saw the viral TikTok, no one bothered to conduct a simple fact check. All it would take is quickly pulling up Mason Ramsey’s twitter account, where you would either find the confirming tweet, or no supporting evidence. But, after all, why would you? Who would lie about something so seemingly unimportant and random as a young artist who went viral four years ago?
Well, as it turns out, the lie did surface to be false after the creator posted a video admitting to the deceit. Looking proud in a follow-up video claiming “it worked!”, @aiden4adderal declared that she strategically designed the trick to test just how easy it would be for people to believe her. And as we can see, she could not have been more correct about her theory.
Why do we believe so much of what we see on the internet? Well, I’d posit four main reasons why we believed this lie, and other lies we see every day: We don’t critically analyze claims that are low stakes, we rely on low-quality evidence as solid proof, we attribute trustworthiness as a quality of social media influencers, and we believe things that we want to believe.
It’s Just Not Really a Big Deal
This example involving Mason Ramsey was, by most people’s standards, not dangerous nor truly harmful; it doesn’t really matter to society if the TikTokers claim was true or not. I would venture to say that most TikTok users probably read the claim, thought “oh that’s cool”, and scrolled to the next video. Or, if other users behave like me on the app, they’d scroll through the comments for a little bit, where they would likely find mixed supportive, surprised, or potentially angry reactions.
Claims are easy to believe when they are low stakes. On the other hand, when we see information about an important-to-society topic like Covid-19 or gun control, most of us feel automatically prompted to question and pay more attention to it. But this topic was nowhere near that level of importance — of course it’s validity would have mattered greatly to the Family Equality Council nonprofit for LGBTQ+ parents, but it simply doesn’t make much of a difference to the majority of society.
So does this mean we don’t have to worry about what happened here with Mason Ramsey, if it only tricked so many people because it was a low-stakes topic? No, I don’t think so. A number of other factors also played a crucial role in why I think we all believed the lie.
“Oh Look Here’s a Screenshot, It Must Be Legit”
The crafter of this extravagant lie did not stop at simply making a verbal statement about Ramsey’s supposed donation; she even took the time to photoshop a fake Tweet that looked to have been posted on Ramsey’s personal twitter account restating what she had claimed in her original post. The tweet looked real and raised no red flags that would indicate a lack of credibility or that it was made up.
To the general person, this would be enough to validate something posted on TikTok without evidence at first. Sure enough, it was enough for me to believe it, despite the fact that the “screenshot” was posted by the very same source that delivered the original claim.
We forgo deeper, thorough fact-checking when we are presented with evidence that seems legitimate to us.
Trustworthy Creator… or Not?
Social media apps like TikTok are filled with influencers and users who have gained large followings. They also provide a home for social figures off the app to post their ideas — people like politicians, celebrities, news anchors, etc. TikTok uses a verification system to indicate that a certain user is actually who they claim to be — a blue checkmark next to someone’s username is all someone needs to verify that it is really them. I think most TikTok users, when asked, would say that they wouldn’t believe some random person’s claims without having some badge of credibility; like, say, a blue checkmark.
But, this was not the case here.
I would take a guess that 99% of those reading this article did not know who this person was before I told you her TikTok handle. She still managed to influence many millions of people — without even a solid background of credibility to her name. If we all believed a random person with the username “aiden4adderal”, what does that say about our willingness to believe creators and influencers with a bigger following, despite not necessarily having a real badge of credibility or education to be trustworthy sources?
I Would Have Loved It if Mason Ramsey Did Do This
Despite the fact that Mason Ramsey is a fifteen-year-old boy with no obligation to donate all (or any) of his profits to charity, it sure would have been really cool if he did. I already like the kid — the yodeling video made me happy to watch, and he seems like a sweet, down-to-earth teenager — so hearing that he did something so generous and selfless would simply reinforce and amplify the feelings that I already have about him.
We believe what we want to believe, and this is a problem on social media. Especially when you consider the fact that most of us live in isolated “echo chambers” on these apps (environments where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own). Echo chambers are fueled by confirmation bias: the tendency to seek out information that supports our preexisting beliefs. When we see something that goes against our beliefs, we are skeptical. We often choose not to look for ways to disprove it, we simply accept it as true, because we want it to be.
The Consequences of Non-Skepticism
The Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy defines this kind of behavior as a practice called “Media Manipulation”. Media Manipulation is defined as the following:
“We define media manipulation as the sociotechnical process whereby motivated actors leverage specific conditions or features within an information ecosystem in an attempt to generate public attention and influence public discourse through deceptive, creative, or unfair means. Campaigns or operations that engage in media manipulation may use several tactics, such as memes, viral videos, forged documents, or leaked information.” ³
In short, media manipulation is a broad, all-encompassing umbrella term that addresses the motives and methods behind how misinformation (untrue information shared as a result of ignorance or lack of knowledge) and disinformation (untrue information shared with the deliberate intent to deceive) are shared. Media manipulation strategically takes advantage of and exploits the amplification abilities inherently present in information ecosystems like social media platforms to accomplish a certain objective. The act of deceit by the TikTok user who created this lie is a prime example of this concept. The user even stated herself that her lie was “strategically planned out — and it worked”.
To amplify falsehoods and promote the spread of their agenda, media manipulators utilize a practice called “source hacking” to strengthen the circulation of false information. In Source Hacking: Media Manipulation in Practice, the authors use case studies to find four main methods of source hacking that are used by media manipulators: these include viral sloganeering, leak forgery, evidence collages, and keyboard squatting. The TikTok author in the Ramsey example utilized leak forgery with the photoshopped tweet, or “prompting a media spectacle by sharing forged documents”.⁶
In the greater world of social media and misinformation, the practice of media manipulation tends to be about concepts that are much higher stakes than a fib about the Walmart yodeler from 2018. Take the Plandemic documentary, for example. Plandemic was a 26 minute trailer video released in May 2020 that quickly went viral, which reinforced the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was planned and made claims that vaccines are harmful, masks “activate” coronavirus, and that the ocean has “healing microbes”. The teaser documentary promised to come out with a full-length film that sought to undermine and discredit the scientific community with false information about Covid-19. However, due to efforts by social media platforms to slow the spread and flag misinformation, the full-length movie did not achieve the same level of virality as did the teaser documentary. The teaser documentary managed to reach millions of people due to the creators’ exploitation of media manipulation practices.⁷
We have seen no shortage of examples in the past few years of untrue information and conspiracies virally spreading throughout social media platforms and the internet — platforms that too many users actually get their news from. A study by Pew Research Center in 2021 found that 48% of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes”.⁴ The same study also found that 29% of TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the site. These numbers are alarming, especially when you consider the fact that sites like TikTok are widely used by young adults and teenagers who are even more susceptible to believing fake news.⁵
So, what now? How do we combat misinformation on social media platforms and become more skilled at identifying and flagging “fake news”?
In short, we need to become more media-literate. This is a broad skill that I think takes years to really navigate and master. But, there are things we can all start to do now to help us hone this skill. One parent decided to buy her children a newspaper subscription to fight misinformation. This is a valuable and worthwhile investment, in my opinion, and encourages young adults to get their news from a credible source that isn’t Tik Tok.
It is also crucial that we learn how to recognize and avoid falling into online echo chambers. In these isolated communities, we are only confronted with information that supports what we want to believe, or what we already believe to be true. These communities fuel the spread of misinformation and disinformation and eliminate alternative viewpoints — creating tunnel vision and narrowed beliefs among those who are present in these environments.
While most of us would agree that this small-stakes lie by @aiden4adderal did not actually harm anyone, the widely-circulated rumor reveals a dangerous truth about our true behavior as gullible social media consumers. If so many of us believed this lie, how many lies would we believe about more important concepts like Covid-19 information and data about vaccination? What does this simple example show us about the ease that misinformation and disinformation can be spread throughout social media?
We have a lot of work to do. As much as we like to believe that we are literate media consumers who critically analyze claims we see on the internet before we accept them as true, the vast majority of us are not. I think it is extremely important that everyone who believed the post about Mason Ramsey — myself included — asks themselves:
Why did I believe this lie?
References
- “Who Is the Yodeling Walmart Boy Mason Ramsey?” Intelligencer. New York Mag. 3 Apr. 2018.
- @HankGreen1 TikTok. 4 Feb. 2022.
- The Media Manipulation Casebook. Accessed 18 Feb. 2022.
- Walker, Mason and Katerina Eva Matsa. “News Consumption Across Social Media in 2021”. Pew Research Center. 20 Sept. 2021.
- Marzilli, Ted. “Old and young US adults most susceptible to fake news”. YouGovAmerica. 13 Jun. 2018.
- Donovan, Joan and Brian Friedberg. “Source Hacking: Media Manipulation in Practice”. Data & Society. 4 Sept. 2019.
- Nilsen, Jennifer. “Distributed Amplifciation: The Plandemic Documentary”. The Media Manipulation Casebook. 7 Oct. 2020.
- Terray Sylvester. Getty Images. 7 May 2020.
