When you see a video or a photo, hear some audio or read a story, why might it not be what you think it is?

Here are a few reasons: 1. Disinformation/Fake: It is a completely fabricated (deep)fake. Never happened. Not real. 2. Disinformation/Doctored: It has been significantly altered. 3. Malinformation: It is from a completely different context. Like a photo from one warzone presented as if it was from another. 4. Assumed Cause: You infer the actors and/ or their motive. An extreme version of this is ‘false flag’ operations where one party does things that look like their enemy must have done it, e.g. by harming themselves. 5. Polluted Mental Model: More generally, you misinterpret what it represents/ means because of your mental model/ ideology/ beliefs/ biases. One reason for this could be that disinformers have been working on polluting your mental model over time. Welcome to the #WorldWithoutTruth. What can you do about about it, as a company or an individual? Well, a whole bunch of things. Here are some: A. Triangulate information from multiple sources. B. Use trusted sources (and periodically reassess their trustworthiness.) C. Rely on information that has embedded content credentials. D. Use tools and technologies for spotting facts and factchecking. E. Continually try to expose and challenge your own assumptions. F. Keep learning and up to date about techniques disinformers are using. In the words of the great Joe Jackson "I know you think that you know// But how do you know //That what you know is true" #unthink #unask #unlearn #disinformation #misinformation #malinformation #Gartner