A Surprisingly Effective Way to Fight Misinformation | Dave Jorgenson | TED

0:03 I'm Dave.

0:05 I've spent pretty much my entire adult

0:07 life working in video journalism and media.

0:10 But what is media, and what forms does it take?

0:13 Let me show you an example.

0:15 This is quipu.

0:17 It was used by the Incas in South America.

0:19 It’s a system of knots and strings.

0:22 And every knot, the shapes, the colors, dimensions, numbers,

0:25 all of it works together to tell a story.

0:29 I can't make heads or tails of that.

0:31 I don't know if you can imagine something like that today on social media,

0:34 but just to put that as an image, this is what it might look like.

0:37 This is actually the first chapter of "Twilight." But while

0:41 you and I may not understand quipu or how it works, this is a form of media.

0:45 And let me give you another example of media,

0:48 from across the pond, in around 370 BC.

0:52 So Plato wrote this story where he

0:55 was imagining a conversation with his real-life teacher,

0:58 Socrates, and a student, Phaedrus.

1:01 Sorry, this is kind of hard to read, let me fix.

1:04 That's better.

1:05 (Laughter) Can everyone understand it now?

1:09 Just to translate it for you, eventually,

1:11 the conversation veers into a debate about speech-giving,

1:15 or whether or not you should do it.

1:16 Kind of like TED moderators deciding whether or not I should be at this event.

1:20 (Laughter) Spoiler alert— I'm here.

1:24 So I think I'm supposed to be.

1:27 The conversation eventually veers into another part, where Plato, as Socrates,

1:33 says that the written word is actually bad,

1:37 that it could be misinterpreted and taken out of context.

1:40 So, in other words, people have always been

1:43 afraid of media and how it could be manipulated.

1:47 (Laughter) So hundreds of years later, one of the first films ever come out,

1:52 black and white, it’s a train platform.

1:55 This is a French film, so these are French people and a French train.

1:58 That train is coming really fast.

2:01 Duck.

2:02 (Laughter) Do you guys see...?

2:06 Oh, OK.

2:06 It was coming right at us.

2:10 Anyway, rumor has it that's how people reacted

2:13 to it when they first saw it in theaters.

2:15 They jumped out of the way.

2:18 (Laughter) Very scary.

2:21 We just weren't ready for that type of media yet.

2:24 Decades later, in 1938,

2:26 there was a radio broadcast that scared a lot of Americans.

2:30 Here's a snippet of it.

2:31 (Recording) Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program...

2:34 to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News.

2:38 At 20 minutes [to] 8 central time,

2:39 Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago,

2:42 Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas

2:46 occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars.

2:49 The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen

2:51 and moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity.

2:54 Dave Jorgenson: You guys hear?

2:55 That’s coming towards Earth.

2:57 We all know that didn’t really happen, but people listening thought it did.

3:00 It was an Orson Welles broadcast.

3:03 And this is him talking to reporters, explaining what happened.

3:06 Those reporters look very concerned.

3:08 And they have reason to be, because people heard this broadcast and were

3:12 literally in the streets forming mobs.

3:14 There was police officers outside the CBS studios in New York,

3:17 and the executives were trying to shut the broadcast down.

3:21 It was a widespread issue.

3:23 The CBS affiliate in Cleveland,

3:25 where the host was the future Tonight Show host Jack Paar,

3:28 he was there trying to convince listeners that it was a fictional story,

3:32 but they didn't believe him.

3:34 People were calling in, and he's like, "No,

3:37 this is an adaption of 'War of the Worlds.' It's fictional.

3:40 It's not real." And so every time there's a new form of media, we have to adapt.

3:46 You guys remember email chains?

3:47 I dug this one up the other day.

3:49 “DON’T DELETE THIS!!!

3:50 (it scared the crap outta me) Once

3:52 there was...” This was starting to sound familiar.

3:55 suddenly, it all went to chaos.

3:57 Forward this email." Everyone forward it.

3:59 Get out your phones.

4:00 (Laughter) So obviously, we figured out,

4:03 eventually, that these emails were scams,

4:06 and so were the Nigerian princes that shared them.

4:09 Though my Nigerian prince was real.

4:11 Basically, I spent a lot of my job as a journalist trying to explain

4:15 to people what they're getting wrong

4:17 online versus actually talking about breaking news.

4:20 Because all of this is so complicated.

4:22 And there’s a word for that in understanding media, it’s called media literacy,

4:26 which is best defined as the ability to access,

4:29 analyze, evaluate and create media in various forms.

4:33 So I kind of soft-launched my career

4:36 into media literacy with this viral PEZ video.

4:39 I don't know if anyone saw this, this was back in 2021.

4:42 It was someone showing you a PEZ dispenser,

4:44 and that you can actually load it by putting the candy in through the bottom.

4:48 That is patently false.

4:49 I was very angry to see this video going viral, and all the comments saying,

4:53 "Wow, I didn't know that." Well, you didn't know it because it wasn't true.

4:57 And as someone who's made 5,000 journalism TikToks, I was like,

5:00 "I'm getting to the bottom of this." (Video) You may have

5:02 seen a TikTok recently where someone takes a wrapped stack of PEZ,

5:06 puts it in the bottom of a dispenser, and then, it comes out fully unwrapped.

5:09 It's fake.

5:11 There's a plastic bottom that the candy would not be able to get around.

5:14 I instantly knew this because I was

5:16 a supercool kid that collected 400 PEZ dispensers.

5:18 But what about the other normal and cool kids

5:21 that didn't see the obvious cut in that TikTok?

5:23 Video can be a very powerful vehicle for misinformation,

5:27 and when it's something much more important than PEZ,

5:29 it can be really dangerous too.

5:31 Here's some false claims that were made on the internet just last week.

5:34 (Music) [Dave was cool in high school]

5:39 (Laughter) My editor suggested the last one.

5:44 Who knows if that's true.

5:46 Anyway, so, you know, unless you were a PEZ head like me,

5:49 that story wasn't probably that important to you.

5:52 But it was a nice way in to talking about media literacy, especially on TikTok,

5:56 where people were taking what they saw

5:58 at face value and not really challenging it.

6:01 And sometimes, what happens is that everything you see online,

6:05 people think is true.

6:07 So one example of that, more recently, up-to-date, in 2025,

6:12 is this video from Will Smith's social media team.

6:15 He was on a tour.

6:17 I heard some grumbles.

6:19 Get ready for your minds to be blown,

6:21 because this video was a compilation of a lot

6:24 of the crowds at his different concerts,

6:27 going through Europe, and it was pretty clearly AI-generated.

6:31 There's a lot of extra fingers on these people.

6:34 Though I do like this guy.

6:35 He's like, "I'm not real.

6:38 But yeah." Anyway, people were, understandably,

6:40 pretty upset about this, and they were

6:43 really upset not just that it was AI-generated,

6:45 but that it appeared that Will Smith tried to generate

6:49 people holding signs like this, which is obviously pretty upsetting.

6:54 Will Smith is someone who is perhaps a little

6:57 polarizing after his Oscar performance at the awards show.

7:00 And for people who feel a certain way about it,

7:04 it was very easy to get very angry about this video.

7:07 But it turns out the truth is much more complicated.

7:09 This is an AI-generated crowd,

7:11 but it comes from real photos of the real crowds at Will Smith's concerts.

7:16 So here's a more in-depth look.

7:18 (Video) You may have seen the videos posted on Will

7:21 Smith's Instagram and YouTube account that are almost definitely AI-generated.

7:25 The hands have a bajillion fingers,

7:26 one sign says “FR6” instead of “FRESH.” And generally speaking,

7:29 people just look off.

7:31 They all kind of look like this.

7:32 This AI is so obvious, I can't believe they thought we would fall for this.

7:36 Well these may actually be real Will Smith fans.

7:39 What?

7:39 No, they aren't.

7:40 The video is very likely AI-generated,

7:42 but the photos themselves seem to actually come from people at the concerts.

7:45 Look at this: the photo matches the video, but instead, everyone looks real.

7:50 And this clip looks like it was taken from this photo.

7:53 So the video is fake, but the people are real.

7:55 Exactly.

7:55 But the video he posted on YouTube is even more fake.

7:58 Last week, the YouTube Creator Liaison admitted that YouTube

8:02 is using image enhancement to unblur and de-noise YouTube shorts.

8:05 OK, so YouTube is using AI.

8:07 He's arguing that image enhancement is not the same thing as AI,

8:10 because it's like the technology that most

8:12 of your smartphones use when you're taking a video.

8:15 YouTube says they'll soon have a button to opt out.

8:17 It's a good thing we have a media literacy class.

8:20 This class isn't real.

8:21 It's for a video.

8:22 What?

8:22 Are you even the vice president?

8:24 (Laughter) I'm not the vice president, but I am considering shaving my beard.

8:31 (Laughter) That comparison is happening a lot.

8:36 (Laughter) (Laughter and applause) It's been a really long year.

8:46 (Laughter) These people don't have enough extra fingers on their hands to count

8:52 how many times we get stuff wrong on TikTok or anywhere in media.

8:57 It's just really hard to keep up.

8:59 And it's also hard to keep up

9:01 with what's happening and where things even came from.

9:03 Like a rapture prediction.

9:05 Do you guys know there was a rapture in September?

9:08 Oh well, I guess none of us made it.

9:11 (Laughter) So this rapture happened, and people were all over TikTok,

9:15 and they were talking about how they were going to leave

9:18 food for their kids in case their kids aren't raptured,

9:21 which is, I don't know, maybe a parenting issue.

9:24 (Laughter) Anyway, they're making all these TikToks,

9:27 and I'm watching all these and secretly enjoying them a little,

9:31 but also wondering, why is no one questioning

9:33 where this prediction came from and why it happened?

9:36 It turns out the prediction wasn't on TikTok.

9:39 It came from YouTube.

9:40 It was this guy, from South Africa, who said that in 2018,

9:43 he had a dream that a rapture was coming in September 2025.

9:47 But for some reason, he waited until 2025 to post a YouTube video about it.

9:52 Anyway, I had to make a more in-depth video for the people,

9:55 the pre-raptured masses.

9:57 (Video) The rapture is happening.

9:59 Oh my God, what do we do?

10:00 I don't see anything in here about a rapture.

10:02 That’s because the rapture isn’t in there.

10:04 But I saw it on TikTok.

10:05 Everything I see online is true.

10:07 Let's take this one chunk at a time.

10:09 Hurry up, there's only a few hours left.

10:11 The word "rapture" isn't in the Bible, but there is a possible reference.

10:15 In First Thessalonians, chapter four, verse 16,

10:18 Paul describes the living being caught up in the clouds together with the dead.

10:22 But that could mean anything.

10:23 And as far as today’s rapture prediction goes,

10:26 it just came from a YouTube video of some

10:28 guy in South Africa saying that the rapture was coming.

10:31 There's a date?

10:32 There is a date." And he's a pastor, right?

10:34 Nope, just a dude who said he saw Jesus in a dream in 2018.

10:38 But why today?

10:39 Why this year?

10:40 He said it was because of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

10:42 Rapture predictions aren't new, and they often take off during uncertain times.

10:47 That makes sense.

10:48 For example, I don't even know if I'd be able to watch Jimmy Kimmel,

10:51 because ABC brought him back,

10:53 but the affiliates Sinclair and Nexstar have still banned him,

10:56 and so there's a lot of uncertainty around that example.

10:59 (Laughter) Anyway, it does make sense, though,

11:05 that people had an emotional reaction to something like a rapture.

11:08 We've always had emotional reactions to media.

11:11 It's because we're afraid of it, a lot of the time,

11:14 and it turns out that fear and misinformation

11:16 travel six times faster than the truth.

11:20 So what emotion is more powerful than fear?

11:24 I think I don't know...

11:26 Whoa!

11:27 (Laughter) I think it's humor.

11:31 (Laughter) And humor is my way into informing the masses

11:36 and really kind of meeting them where they are,

11:38 because it's much easier to talk to someone when you make

11:41 yourself the butt of the joke rather than talk down to someone.

11:44 They're not necessarily going to respond to that.

11:46 And so by using humor, I've always been able to make these videos and kind

11:50 of find my way into this world of misinformation and scary media.

11:54 (Laughter) This was all a long con to get that photo, by the way.

11:59 (Laughter) Now if you went back in time and handed seven-year-old me an iPhone,

12:05 I wouldn't know what to do with it.

12:07 I thought my dog was a footrest.

12:08 We've always been scared of different forms of media.

12:12 So my argument is that, ultimately, we don't need to be scared of media,

12:17 as long as we acknowledge that every time there's a new form of media,

12:21 a new, unprecedented form,

12:22 we can overcome it and be a little bit less scared and have a little more fun.

12:29 I'm not afraid of you.

12:30 (Laughter) Thank you.

12:32 (Cheers and applause)