powerful people must anticipate how their words might be twisted in the online information war on techpowerful people must now anticipate how their words might be twisted into weapons in the online information warvideocreditcreditby brenna murphypublished oct 8 2020updated oct 13 2020this article is part of the on tech newsletter you can sign up here to receive it weekdayswe know that false information spreads online like the worlds worst game of telephonebut we dont talk enough about the role of people in charge who say too little or the wrong things at important moments creating conditions for misinformation to flourishthink about the recent rumors and outrage that flew around president trumps health the wildfires in oregon and the message of a netflix film illconsidered communication from those at the top including the president himself made cycles of bogus information and misplaced anger even worseevery word that powerful people say matters it may not be fair but they must now anticipate how their words might be twisted intentionally or not into weapons in the online information warfor one example look at oregon where a tweet and other poorly communicated information from the police contributed to bogus rumors that leftwing activists deliberately started wildfireswe ask you to demonstrate peacefully and without the use of fire the police in portland posted there was no evidence that protesters were setting fires but people seized on this and other odd or ambiguous official information as evidence that leftwing provocateurs at the portland protests were responsible for wildfireslocal officials including the chamber of commerce in sioux falls sd also spread false rumors over the summer that leftwing protesters were headed to their town to start troublenone of this was true but truth doesnt matter in internet information soup wrong or illconsidered official statements can confirm what people already suspectedthe same thing happened when netflix unleashed a clueless marketing campaign to promote a film called cuties my colleague described the movie as a nuanced exploration of gender and race and how society dangerously blurs the lines between girl empowerment and sexual exploitation but netflixs promotional materials including an image of tween girls posing in dance clothes gave the false impression that the movie sexualized childrenin short netflixs communication projected the idea that its own movie was the opposite of what it really was some politicians parents and a texas prosecutor called the film child pornography and pushed netflix to ban it outcry about the movie has been amplified by supporters of the qanon conspiracy theory the false idea that top democrats and celebrities are behind a global childtrafficking ringi want to be clear there are always people who twist information to their own ends people might have misplaced blame for the wildfires or dumbed down the complexities of cuties even if official communications had been perfectly clear from the jump but by not choosing their words and images carefully the people in charge provided fuel for misinformationwe see over and over again that unclear wrong or not