Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it's learned may be crucial to Western democracy

[CousinIT]

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/

. . . The course is part of an anti-fake news initiative launched by Finland’s government in 2014 – two years before Russia meddled in the US elections – aimed at teaching residents, students, journalists and politicians how to counter false information designed to sow division.

Jussi Toivanen teaching students how to spot fake news at Espoo Adult Education Centre.
The initiative is just one layer of a multi-pronged, cross-sector approach the country is taking to prepare citizens of all ages for the complex digital landscape of today – and tomorrow. The Nordic country, which shares an 832-mile border with Russia, is acutely aware of what’s at stake if it doesn’t.

Finland has faced down Kremlin-backed propaganda campaigns ever since it declared independence from Russia 101 years ago. But in 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea and backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, it became obvious that the battlefield had shifted: information warfare was moving online.

Toivanen, the chief communications specialist for the prime minister’s office, said it is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of misinformation operations to have targeted the country in recent years, but most play on issues like immigration, the European Union, or whether Finland should become a full member of NATO (Russia is not a fan).

As the trolling ramped up in 2015, President Sauli Niinisto called on every Finn to take responsibility for the fight against false information. A year later, Finland brought in American experts to advise officials on how to recognize fake news, understand why it goes viral and develop strategies to fight it. The education system was also reformed to emphasize critical thinking. . . .

[UpInArms]

1. emphasize critical thinking

Something sadly lacking in the US

[PJMcK]

6. This is right on point

Further, our schools need to start teaching civics and ideologies again. Far too many Americans don't understand the political words they use.

[wnylib]

24. Totally agree.

[Hortensis]

8. Well, it's either lacking or not in EACH of us. Thinking is OUR

job, and if it's not critical it's not thinking, just taking in and reacting.

[ret5hd]

14. When so much of society (religion? sports fandom? consumerism?)...

is antithetical to critical thinking...
When so much of society is anti-intellectual (need I give examples?)...
When so much of society rewards passivity (television? rote learning?)...

Why would anyone not expect masses of people to lack critical thinking skills?
Why would anyone denigrate actively teaching those skills to society at large?

On edit: Yes it is "our job". My "job" (in a past life) was a machinist. I didn't spring into being as a machinist, even if it did turn out that I had at least some aptitude for it. I had to be taught.

[Hortensis]

25. Yep. But fixes HAVE to start with ourselves. We can't

demand better teaching on a mass level until we understand and believe in it ourselves. And understand the severe limitations of instilling critical thinking.

It's a mistake to imagine American schools haven't been teaching critical thinking for decades now. Millions of Americans who HAVE been methodically taught to think in our schools (isn't the answer with "always" in it always the wrong one? ) abandon critical thinking as adults because that is their nature.

And that's not all people offload because caring and remembering's not their nature. What was it, something like 3/4 of adults can't name the 3 branches of government (that doesn't include naming their functions) in spite of being taught them repeatedly over their 12 years in school? They give fascistic types like Scott Walker a real argument for just teaching people what they need to "meet the needs of industry."

Teaching things like morals and logic, right and wrong in real-life situations, is another necessary approach that can combine to help keep people from being lead too far from the truth. We're overall very morally lax, and that provides enormous opportunity for manipulation.

With new understanding of how our brains really work, experts around the planet are developing methods to use the various really strange and complex ways people actually "think" and react to help us be better at it. I'm imagining individualized computer programs designed to work with different patterns of personality and brain functioning, instead of the simplistic methods of the past that failed their goals for large numbers of people.

You may not be able to make a horse drink by leading him to water, but if you can convert it to something he will take in... Even 15% better will be a revolution.

[Amimnoch]

9. So much this. Even more than healthcare, this needs to be a top priority!

One of many posts I’ve made on this subject:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=12772218

Courses in critical thinking need to be universal and a required part of grade school.

Of all the courses I took during my university years, NONE have been more valuable in life than what I learned in the critical thinking courses I took. How to question and grade sources of information. Especially questioning the validity of information I receive in which i have a bias and vested interest to believe. How to take my own beliefs and enculturation out of my own opinions and actions as it applies to others. How to drill down to any bias of the author or presenter of information I receive.

Even while I was taking those courses I was questioning why those courses weren’t a standard part of every high or middle school curriculum.

[malaise]

18. and not only in the US n/t

[whathehell]

34. No more lacking here than in any other now RighLeaning Democracy

The Brits voted themselves out of the European Union, and the next day almost broke the Internet searchhing "What is the European Union"?

[DENVERPOPS]

39. If trump reads this

tomorrow morning we can expect a tweet telling the Fins to go back to raking their forests.....LOL

[DFW]

42. There is a great quote by Thomas Dewar

"Minds are like parachutes--they only function when open."

[Captain Zero]

2. Finland brought in American experts to advise officials

Sure would like to know who the American experts were. We could use a little home cookin' right now.

[Lonestarblue]

5. Some schools teach media analysis.

The US experts could have been university professors from schools offering degrees in journalism or media communications, like Northwestern and Columbia.

We need a new required high school course teaching civics (since many states no longer require it), citizen responsibilities (especially for voting), and how to determine facts versus propaganda. Such a course should also bring in key Supreme Court cases and have students analyze how they have changed citizen participation and rights.

[blaze]

7. Well, the article told us

"Jed Willard, director of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Center for Global Engagement at Harvard University, who was hired by Finland to train state officials to spot and then hit back at fake news, told CNN."

We've got people who know how... but an administration that's blocking any efforts to fight disinformation.

[NewJeffCT]

16. They'd be bashed as liberal elitists

and purveyors of Fake News by Trump, Fox News, Limbaugh and all the others.

[Ohiogal]

20. That was my first thought, as well!

[pansypoo53219]

3. we REALLY need critical thinking skills. think flat earthers.

i get old books. read old books. we have devolved big time since 1776. YES. i am reading orations but american founders right now. trump is a moron.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Critical thinking - that is the problem

Americans, particularly uneducated or young, are numb from tv and social media. They can't think. Feelings get in the way of logic, and feelings are warped by advertising.

[Hortensis]

10. Anyone tried the "Bad News" online game?

Here's an article about it,

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/scientists-claim-online-game-vaccinates-players-against-fake-news.html

And here's the game.

https://getbadnews.com/#intro

I'm afraid I didn't do as well as I kind of expected the first time, , but the object of the game is to make people better able to recognize and analyze fake news. The player's the bad guy.

[panfluteman]

11. The Last Sentence Says It All...

The educational system was reformed to emphasize critical thinking. That should be the core of our strategy in the US as well, once we get our country back. The internet is like one big Pandora's box, and the internet genie can't be put back in the bottle. Along with all the benefits of the internet also come all the potential hazards and dangers as well. And a greatly enhanced potential for spreading fake news and disinformation is definitely one of them. And there's only so much one can do, a very limited amount, to externally regulate what internet surfers are exposed to. The ultimate solution is contained in the last sentence of this article; it's what I have been saying all along. Unfortunately, teaching students critical thinking skills is not as easy as teaching them how to take standardized multiple choice tests. Along with Civics and American Government, a course on Introduction to Philosophy, Logic and Critical Thinking should be part of the high school curriculum.

EDUCATION IS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM OF A DEMOCRACY!

[Scarsdale]

12. So, apparently American

experts can teach others, but fail miserable at home? The gop needs a crash course in this, unless they are the ones who teach overseas? Do as I say, not as I do. The new gop mantra?

[lark]

13. "The education system was also reformed to emphasize critical thinking. . . ."

Totally opposite of what happened here where rw took control of education (disinformation) and is hard at work destroying our public school system in favor of private and religious education which costs the parents $$ they often don't have. They are actively working to make us more stupid so we will not fight their heinous ideas vigorously and will be so stupid and poor we will work for slave wages and will die young with no healthcare available. That is what the rw leaders & oligarchs of America are actively trying to foist on us = a working model of barons and serfs. Rich white males are the barons and middle class, poor, minorities and women are the serfs/slaves.

[Ford_Prefect]

21. Advertising and commercialized popular culture have a lot to answer for as well.

The Medium being the message that it is as well. 6 seconds or less decide many consumer choices and an entire generation's sense of music and poetry. Through a medium driven by sales, by hype and propaganda of all kinds, we have become addicted to mental cotton candy.

[NNadir]

15. I need to read and research the article...

...when I have time.

[peggysue2]

17. That last line is the money quote

The education system was also reformed to emphasize critical thinking. . . .

The best defense possible is an educated populace. There's a reason Trump declared his love for the uneducated. Tyrants always do.

[NewJeffCT]

19. Finland is a country of 5 1/2 million people

which is smaller than New York City and only a little bit bigger than Los Angeles and far less diverse than either. While we could definitely take some lessons from them, implementing similar policies in a country of 320+ million is going to take a lot longer.

[ret5hd]

23. Why does size make it harder?

Honest question. If a certain "percentage" (people, effort, money, time) is used in one scale, why does it not work on another?

The diversity part I can at least understand there may be an argument to be made. With some problems (take mass transit for example) I can see where size/density can make a real difference.

But for something like educating a group of people about a concept/skill? I don't see why scalability is an issue. It seems more like a "we don't really want to".

[uponit7771]

26. Like twice as long? If its even close then its still 200% worth doing

[NewJeffCT]

27. I'm not saying don't do it

but, it's not going to happen in 3-5 years like it happened in Finland - maybe 10-15 years, but it's still something that must be done. And, here you're going to get pushback from red states, red counties and red towns as well.

[defacto7]

35. How long do we estimate it has taken to get where we are?

30-60 years? The Internet could speed the recovery somewhat but it's taken generations to destroy education, most of that destruction in the last 20 years. But yeah, it will take a long time for this country to recover to the point that facts can be discerned from disinformation as a common way of life.

[tenderfoot]

32. That is my favorite excuse ever to not get ANYTHING done...

Health care, public transportation, affordable higher education, renewable energy and the list just goes on.

We're just too damned big to accomplish anything but weaponry and tax breaks for billionaires.

So like Mary Cheney says, "Do nothing."



p.s. I wrote this before reading the responses to you and understand your point. I'm just sick of the "but they have less people" bee ess.

[Humanist_Activist]

40. Its a bullshit excuse anyways, especially when it comes to infrastructure and health care...

while population scales can create challenges, in most cases, it should make things easier, not harder. We have the largest economy in the world, with a lot more money to utilize along with more natural resources to leverage, yet we waste that money on bullshit.

[Ohiogal]

22. Now here is a government

That truly looks out for the needs of its people. Tops in education and health outcomes.

Whereas in the US we have this “government is the enemy,”. “every man for himself” and “schools are left wing brainwashing systems”.

[mathematic]

28. People do critical thinking poorly

I'm pretty sure we've been telling everybody for generations that they need to think critically. This results in things like infowars, "both sides are the same", and anti-vaxxers.

We're not lacking critical thinking, we're lacking good critical thinking.

We're suffering from a widespread distrust of trustworthy sources and institutions. That's not because of a lack of critical thinking.

[coti]

29. Even people who didn't vote for Clinton because of Russian propaganda thought they were

being smart and not letting themselves get "fooled"...

[live love laugh]

30. I spend time every day putting out information and quashing disinformation.

There’s so much opportunity for people to BE the media. It takes very little. DU and other liberal sites help keep me armed for battle. I don’t just read I spread info.

[calimary]

31. Instead of having American advisors go to Finland,

Seems like what we really need is to have advisors from Finland come OVER HERE.

[Esperanto.Mark]

33. Certain powerful institutions...

...have discouraged critical thinking for a long time. They've even influenced certain institutions of public education to control, limit, and focus the public's critical thinking abilities where it best served their interests.

Sounds crazy, I know....

[RainCaster]

36. Critical thinking has been missing from our education system for at least 40 years

[warmfeet]

38. Finland would

make a great model for this earth, and for all humans, and for all life forms on this earth.

Kudos to Finland!

[Cha]

41. Gawd, do we need this to spread all over

America!

We Are Sick & Tired of IT!