Cascades, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Growing up in an immigrant household, I’d often hear of fads, crazes, and misinformation spreading through my parents’ networks – particularly as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic increased reliance on platforms for communication and connection. When I’d ask where this information was heard, the common answer would be Whatsapp. Speaking to other friends who are from diaspora communities, I noticed a common thread wherein information, news articles, and graphics would flow downstream to their parents’ network via chat apps.
This phenomenon of an information cascade isn’t uncommon; from the Underground Railroad to the stock market to the war in Ukraine, informal information networks have existed as vital arteries of communities for safety, public information, and/or personal gain. Through peer production, information on messaging apps like Signal, Whatsapp, and Telegram continually reproduces and disseminates, cascading until it becomes dominant in the network. Information diffuses and infiltrates clusters, spreading widely once it does so. The key is “communities of trust” and the “human connections they afford and, consequently, authenticity and intimacy that go hand-in-hand with information shared” (Gursky et al. 5) The highly-connected nature of these networks and interpersonal trust work in tandem to serve as conduits and enablers for the information to be believed and subsequently shared.
When this misinformation – which may be innocuous or deliberately planted disinformation – is introduced into a network, it can cascade rapidly up- or downstream, resulting in a perpetuation and widespread sharing of incorrect or sensationalized information. We can see how the idea of networks and information cascades translate in the real world and how the spread of this information has dire consequences. Gursky et al. discuss how members and allies of India’s BJP party created group chats that mimicked offline networks and used targeted data to craft messages to the chat. This is a direct exploitation of communities of trust to spread disinformation and skew election results. With occurrences like this becoming more widespread, understanding network theory and how information cascades through networks will be vital to combatting disinformation as our lives become increasingly online.