On today’s trip to and from the future, we’re considering questions of truth, reality, and how to be a good sharer of news. How do you avoid sharing fake information? How do you tell what’s real and what’s not? In this swirling vortex of disinformation, how can you make sure you’re not contributing to the problem? 

To help guide us through the swamp of memes and misinformation, Rose talks to Jane Lytvenenko, a professional debunker at BuzzFeed News. Jane walks us through the steps she uses to verify images and claims. And to get an official answer on one particular coronavirus related image, Rose calls Dr. Amy Lee, a molecular biologist at Simon Fraser University who talks about what it’s like to watch so much scientific misinformation be thrown around amidst a pandemic. 

Here are the images we discuss on today’s episode:

Further reading:

• Here’s A Running List Of The Latest Hoaxes Spreading About The Coronavirus
• Fake animal news abounds on social media as coronavirus upends life
• A running list of fake/misleading posts about the current protests
• How To Talk About The Coronavirus With Friends And Family

Advice For And From The Future is written, edited and performed by Rose Eveleth. The theme music is by Also, Also, Also. The logo is by Frank Okay. Additional music this episode provided by Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Noah Veltman for help setting up the texting service. 

To get even more, you can become a Flash Forward Presents Time Traveler for access to behind the scenes exclusive content, early access to new shows, and other surprises & goodies.

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TRANSCRIPT

ADVICE FOR AND FROM THE FUTURE

S1E4: “How can I fight fake news?”

[Door opening]

[Store bell jingle]

[Advice for and from the Future theme kicks in: low, long synths under a steady, crunchy rhythm]

ROSE EVELETH:

Hi again, and welcome back. I’m glad you could join us. I know our door is a little bit hard to find, nestled between the cryptozoology supply store and the DNA sequencing travel agency, but here you are. Got a question about tomorrow? Well you are in the right place. 

Welcome to your friendly neighborhood futurology shop, where you can get the answers to tomorrow’s questions… today. 

On today’s trip to and from the future, we are considering questions of truth, reality, and how to be a good sharer of news. 

[Theme fades out]

CALLER:
Hey, Rose! So my question is about fake news- which, like, you know, the whole phrase gives me the creepy-crawlies, but- (slight sigh) let’s just leave that. 

Um, I recently shared something that I- was told (slight laugh) later on by friends was not real. It was about a baby platypus, and I’m so embarrassed- So, okay. (sigh) How- (longer sigh) How do I figure this out? How do I (laugh) prevent that from happening in the first place, and save myself a lot of embarrassment, and make sure that I’m also not part of the problem? 

I know that “fake news,” or, you know, mm, unreliable news sites are a huge part of why, you know, our country is so- kinda messed up. So, yeah. I just don’t want to be a part of that. Please help. 

ROSE:
To answer that question, I called a professional debunker, someone who spends her days rooting out the truth from the fictional photos of sharks in subway systems: Jane Lytvnenko, a reporter at BuzzFeed news who covers mis- and disinformation. 

ROSE (on call):
Jane, um, thank you so much for joining us to answer this question about how we make sure we’re not spreading misinformation, which is something that I hope everyone is trying to do- to not spread misinformation. (laugh) But before we get into specific tools and techniques in how you do it, maybe the first thing I’d love to talk about is: Are there certain platforms or certain places where this kind of fake news, fake images, fake information or misinformation spreads more than others, like are certain platforms safer than other platforms?

JANE LYTVNENKO:
So this is a really great question because it’s one of the top misconceptions about misinformation and disinformation- that it lives on one specific platform and that all the other platforms are safe. 

But really,  mis- and dis- information is platform agnostic. It doesn’t really respect the arbitrary borders of websites and news feeds. And it can go from your Facebook group or your chat group to Instagram, to Twitter- even to TikTok. There’s really no social media that is safe from mis- or disinformation or its close cousin hate speech.

ROSE:
Are there any sort of immediate telltale signs that something isn’t quite right? 

JANE:
Yeah, I mean, I think the first sign isn’t visual or even really the information that you’re seeing in front of your eyes; it’s how you feel. What we know about mis- and disinformation is that it really plays on anxiety. It really plays on panic. And it really plays on our emotions, especially right now, that’s, that’s not in short supply. So, um, the first thing that you should be paying attention to is how a piece of information makes you feel. And if it sort of really elates you or really panics you, that is the time to pause and dig a little bit further into it. 

And from there, what you can do is: If it’s a website, you can click through to the website and just go to its home page to see whether it, like any other news site, covers a variety of topics, some boring, some relevant- or if it is something that really only covers things that are very bombastic, very all caps, very, you know.. angry images of politicians or even edited images of politicians, sometimes.

Also don’t trust memes. Just don’t.

ROSE (laughing):
I feel like that’s a good rule in general.

[They both laugh together]

ROSE (cont’d):
As much as I love memes, they’re not for news. That’s not what they’re for. 

JANE:
Memes are not for news; memes are great for jokes, and that’s it. 

ROSE:
Yeah, yeah. So I want to ask you to walk me through maybe a couple of these just to kind of see what the process is like.

ROSE (Mono):
Okay, so we are about to talk about a couple of images, and obviously this is a podcast. There are no pictures. 

But! If you want to be able to see the three images that we’re about to talk about, there are two ways you can do that: You can check out the blog post for this episode, which is linked in the show notes. Or, you can send a text message to the following number, and you will get a text back with the three images we’re about to talk about. 

So, ready?  The number is 469-423-8423. That’s 469, the number 4, “ADVICE.” 469-4-ADVICE. You can text anything you want, and you should get a response with the three images that’s we’re about to talk about.

Texting rates do apply, so, you know, just, like, know that. Okay, back to the pictures at hand.

ROSE (on call):
So maybe- Can we start with the video of tanks in San Diego that you sort of looked into? Wh- Like, how- So, I see it on my- Let’s say I see it in Twitter and I say ‘Oh, wow. All these tanks are, you know, coming through San Diego.’ And this is a common one for the coronavirus, right; there’s lots of images of military in X City marching in or marching through or doing something. So, I see this video of tanks in San Diego. What are my next kind of steps? 

JANE:
Your first thought should be Okay, I’m seeing this video. Can I find somebody else who has posted similar-looking photos or videos? Or, can I find an official announcement that this is taking place?

And usually it can be pretty fun and pretty easy to search within social media platforms to see if there are any similar posts. So with the tank one, just search ‘San Diego tanks’ and see whether anybody else has posted them. And there is a couple of things that you should be on the lookout for, if you’re doing that.

One of them- I think the primary one, really- is the weather. The weather in photos and videos can really tell us a lot about when they were shot and whether they were recent. So for, for the San Diego video, for example, it was fairly sunny there, if I remember correctly. There was greenery on the trees. So is that something that is true of San Diego right now, or is that something that was true of San Diego on the day that this video was posted? 

If you navigate away from that social media network, a step that I strongly recommend, and go to either your local news station or even to a search engine and say, ‘Tank San Diego,’ you will find more information about it. That key step, it should really come at the pause, you know; I should really be ‘Okay. I’m seeing this video. Do I have questions about it? Does this seem legit to me? Is this something that I’ve seen before,’ you know? It’s really that critical- turning that critical thinking component on as you’re scrolling through your feeds. 

ROSE:
Yeah, I feel like military presence and animals doing things-

[Jane laughs]

ROSE (cont’d):
-are, like, two that generally, I see all the time, where it’s like- there’s probably not tanks and there probably aren’t insert animal here. Like, wherever it is you’re talking about. (giggling) 

[Jane joins in the laughter]

JANE (laughing):
People get really mad at me when I tell them that their animal has nothing to do with the message that’s- it’s being presented alongside of. People really, really enjoy looking at animals and- Godspeed! But they have nothing to do with the coronavirus. 

[They both laugh]

JANE (cont’d):
My favorite one was Sandra, the orangutan who was washing her hands, which was a video that was actually taken in November but inadvertently created a great Wash Your Hands PSA for the Coronavirus.

ROSE:
I saw that one and I didn’t look into it, but I did have a thought being like- I feel like her keepers probably wash their hands always anyway? Like, you as a person handling animals should be washing your hands. So my question for that was- I was like, well, were they- were they not washing their hands before? (laughing) That seems bad. 

[They both laugh]

JANE:
No, I mean, clearly, your instinct was correct because she learned how to wash her hands before the pandemic. But, you know, the, these animal accounts that can seem a little bit harmless and fun. But a lot of them- a lot of these viral animal photos and videos are posted by cloud chasers or by people seeking to grow their accounts. 

And it’s a really well known tactic for an account that is looking for engagement, that’s looking for new followers to start out with these sort of really nice, heartwarming viral stories and then spread the- switch to spreading something more malicious. So, on one hand, the animal videos seem like the most, sort of, innocuous type of mis- and disinformation. But we also can’t take it out of context of the Internet environment that we find ourselves in. 

ROSE:
And there are plenty of legit cool animal videos. My favorite being the zookeepers who let the penguins go visit the rest of the aquarium. Have you seen that one?

JANE:
Yes!

ROSE (laughing):
I love that one! 

JANE (slightly overlapping):
Yes, I love that one! Oh, that was the best one.

ROSE:
What about the ones that are maybe not a photo that’s quite as easy to search for, but something like the one where it was like, oh, here’s a satellite image of cremations in China. Like, how do you tackle something like that? 

JANE:
Yeah. So- that one, that was a fairly prominent hoax that we saw early on. And then we saw it come back and what we call a zombie hoax, uh, very appropriate for our depressing times right now.

[Slight laugh from Rose as she says this]

JANE (cont’d):
But we definitely saw it come back a few times and fool quite a few people. So it’s just an image that’s showing essentially emissions over China. And the image claims that the emissions were from crematoriums and claims that that is proof that more people died in China that we know.

 And the situation in China is absolutely tricky, and there’s no sort of one image to encapsulate what is going on in that country. But what a satellite image does is it sort of- creates this air of credibility, especially for people who don’t look at satellite images all day or who are not very well versed in what they should look out for in satellite imagery. So what was actually going on in that image is it was most likely coal mine emissions from China; they are right around coal mines in China. 

Now, if you do a reverse image search on it, you will still get the debunk. But it.. can be.. a little bit, a little bit difficult to even know to do the reverse image search on that. So with images like that, I really like to rely on online nerds (laugh) who do truly know their stuff.

There are many cohorts of people who study satellite imagery, who study military imagery, who are very quick to correct a piece of mystery disinformation relating to that. And in almost all tweets related to those images, you’ll see in the comments section, people saying, well, this is actually why it’s not true. And the comment section is a good place to start. If you have a hunch that something’s not right, trying to see if other people had this similar hunch or if other people sort of started explaining what may have been going on. But this is also just another case of where I will tell you ‘go to a news source.’

If that really were true, if it really were true that satellite imagery was showing that China- Chinese morgues were working in over time, you would absolutely have reporters either based in the region or reporters who have been looking at the corona virus confirming that suspicion. And we’ve seen plenty of disturbing satellite imagery around COVID-19. But one of the ones that stuck in my mind is satellite imagery of mass graves being dug.

So there is definitely reporting that could help you get more information on what’s going on, even if you’re not necessarily the expert. 

ROSE:
Okay, so I want to try and see if I can send you an image that maybe you haven’t seen before-

JANE:
All right.

ROSE:
-And you can kind of explain how you would do it. So I’m going to send you this by email and just let me know if you’ve seen it already. 

JANE:
All right. 

ROSE (laughing):
I realized as I was trying to find one of these, I was like, I bet you she’s seen all of these. (laughing)

JANE:
I’m excited!

ROSE:
Okay. I just sent it to you.

JANE:
Maybe it’ll surprise me! Remember when we had to press F5 to-

[She and Rose both laugh slightly]

[Jane loads the image]

JANE (cont’d):
-restart websites? 

Ah, there we go. All right. See that it comes from Reddit, immediate suspicion.

[Rose laughs]

JANE (cont’d):
Oh, interesting. Okay.

ROSE:
Have you seen this one? 

JANE:
I haven’t. 

ROSE:
Oh, okay, good, yes!

JANE (overlapping):
So.. this is great. This is great. 

ROSE (laughing):
Good, I found one that you haven’t seen. Yeah, I was, like, looking through and I was like, ugh, I’m sure she’s seen all of these. 

JANE:
All right, so. It comes from Reddit, which makes me immediately suspicious because Reddit can be great, but it can also be a big source of misinformation.

It is an image of a nurse. The caption on the image says “A nurse wearing a mask and protective glass under UV light can see the distribution of the viruses. That’s why after came back-” that’s a typo- “must change and bath-” also typo- “before touching our family members. please share and let more people know. With Boundless Merits!” and “Boundless Merits” is both capitalized.

So the first thing that stands out to me, of course, is bad grammar. We see that a lot with mis- and disinformation. And.. it’s sort of one of the first indicators that you should dig into things a little bit more. 

The image is also very visually compelling. And if I were just scrolling through my Facebook feed, it would definitely give me pause, because.. the conversation around medical workers and medical worker protection right now is very, very prominent and there’s a lot of people worrying about it. So I would say that it definitely checks off the topical misinformation, questionable source, and bad grammar.

So from here, I’m clicking right click, “Search Google by image.” 

[Pause as she does so]

JANE (cont’d):
And we’re seeing that it came from.. a blog spot. (slight sigh, clucking tongue) That is not in English, let’s see. 

[Pause as she gathers more info]

JANE (cont’d):
It came from a reform website. Not really…. (pause, checking out the site more) Not really the legitimate looking site… here. It doesn’t say where this image came from. 

So immediately, I would, I would put a pause on sharing this, instantly. This image hasn’t been fact check yet, which is double as interesting. 

So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to take a screenshot of the image (clicking in the background over this) and cut off the part where there is a caption for it. And I’m doing that to see if I can find the source of the image with a little bit more precision without the caption, because it might be that the caption is distracting Google from reading the image that we’re seeing. (typing)

So after taking the screenshot, I’m going to images.google.com and uploading the screenshot- That is just the image without the text itself. (whispering slightly) Let’s see what we’ve got here.

[The page loads]

JANE (cont’d):
All right. So we’re definitely seeing a lot more results for it. We’re seeing different captions for it, we’re seeing.. it in Arabic, we’re seeing it in.. Hong Kong groups.

So, with this stuff, it’s sometimes key to keep going past the first page of Google search results. So going to the second page of Google search results, I can see that it is a lot of unreliable websites spreading it and a lot of Chinese social media spreading it as well.

And this is a problem that we actually ran into with debunking or verifying videos coming out of Wuhan early on in January, which is that videos and images were both unverified and unverifiable. We couldn’t necessarily trace where it came from, nor could we say with confidence that the images and videos that we were looking at are false. That really added to the confusion around the virus. 

So, the other thing that I can try here is Google some of the words in the caption. And, you know, on first glance, I would already say that folks don’t really need to go and dig further into it than this-

[Slight laugh from Rose in the background]

JANE (cont’d):
-because we already see that the only place it’s appeared is Web sites that look like news websites but aren’t really news websites. But why not jump down the rabbit hole? We’ve got the time. 

ROSE:
Yeah, let’s do it!

JANE:
The key piece of information here is that you can see the distribution of the viruses, right. You can see this virus under UV light, and- it, it’s scary, right? If this is really what health care workers are going through, it’s scary. So what I’m going to Google is, (typing as she says it) ‘Can you see Coronavirus under UV light?’ 

So it is true that some UV light can kill the coronavirus, but! That is not the question we have here. 

So we’re going to get even fancier here. 

[Slight laugh from Rose]

JANE (cont’d):
Because so many news stories- let me know if this is a little bit too intricate.

ROSE:
No, this is great. This is great.

[They both laugh slightly]

JANE:
Okay. Because so many news stories are focused on whether the UV light can kill the Coronavirus, what I’m going to do is- I’m going to try to take out the word ‘kill’ from my search results, which is really just the minus sign or dash and the word ‘kill’ after it in Google with no spaces. That tells Google we do not want to see any results with the word kill in it. (click)

So I’m getting a bunch of academic papers, and I’m also getting a couple of news stories that might be a little bit easier to digest. 

Ah. So, they did use a UV light to highlight how a virus transmits, but they used it with a powder that specifically glows under UV light. 

[More clicking]

JANE:
So, here’s what we know so far: What we know so far is that the image itself came from social media from across the globe and has been spread by unreliable- websites. We know that the image itself includes typos. We know that we cannot really trace the point of origin for the image. 

We also know that as far as we can see from our quick search, while blacklight can help people understand how the virus spreads just by showing little particles, there’s really nothing here to indicate that the virus itself glows in the dark.

Really, I would say that we cannot conclusively mark this false until we speak to an expert who can explain to us what it is that we are or aren’t looking at. I’m not a- I’m not a scientist, so I don’t fully grasp the properties of the virus. And it’s really important to say that neither are most people who are going to be seeing this image. 

So for me, the next step would be to call those experts who have looked at UV light’s effect on the virus already and ask them, ‘Hey, does UV light also make the virus glow in the dark?’ Send this image to them and see what they say. 

ROSE:
So, do viruses glow under blacklight? 

AMY LEE:
No. I (laughing) spent actually a little bit researching (laugh) about that, and as far as I know, viruses do not glow under blacklight.

ROSE (Mono):
This is Dr. Amy Lee, a microbiologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. 

One of the interesting things about this image that we’re talking about, to me at least, is that in many ways it’s CLOSE to being a good one. It’s encouraging mask use and hand washing, which we know are both good things, and Amy says that some microscopic stuff does glow under UV light.

AMY:
On CSI we see people use blacklight to detect-

ROSE (background):
Mhm.

AMY:
-you know, bodily fluids. So- sure, you know, biological- biological agent like a virus, sure. Why, why wouldn’t it glow, right. And so I can also see another reason why people think that. You know, there are actually certain bacterial species that I work on that do glow under blacklight. 

But as far as I know, viruses do not glow under blacklight.

ROSE (on call):
Yeah, so this is not a picture of Coronavirus covering this woman’s face. That’s not what we’re looking at.

AMY:
No. No, in fact, I think what we’re probably looking at is some type of fluorescent molecule that glows under blacklight. And actually, for people who do research, we all have to- especially when we work with pathogens- we all have to do these biosafety courses, and one of the demonstrations they have you do is- they give you this fluorescent molecule that you rub all over your hands, and you wash your hands, you know, for however long you normally do it. And they shine a black light to show you that actually you haven’t washed your hands very well. 

So I imagine that’s probably what we’re seeing, is some sort of similar fluorescent molecule to demonstrate what happens when you spray aerosol, you know, in the vicinity of a person. What their face- the areas that are exposed- might be covered.

ROSE:
So you might think, well, what’s the harm here? The message is that you should wash your hands and wear protective gear, and those things are true. But…

AMY:
I’m worried that if people really do believe this, they go out and buy blacklight and shine it on their hands or their face every time they go out and say, ‘Oh, you know, I see nothing. I must be alright,’ and kind of use that as a false sense of security. That would be very scary. 

ROSE:
If you saw somebody, you know, in your family, or a friend, share this picture on, say, Facebook or something, what would your reaction be? Do you tend to correct people? And, and how would you kind of address this?

AMY:
Mm. Yeah, this- this is really hard, I think. So- one of the things that I, I work with is also vaccines. And we know there’s a lot of misinformation around vaccines. So how do you deal with.. misinformation as a scientist? And I think one of the major ways is to be calm and to, you know, not take it personally and just really not talk down to people. Try to initiate a dialogue, and be as factual as you can. Provide as many sources to back you up. Almost, like, what you would do in a (phone dings) science- standard science communication to other scientists.

ROSE (Mono):
Okay, now back to Jane, who got a phone call while we were talking which stopped her recording. But, never fear; I always run a backup. But you will probably notice that the audio for her is going to sound a little bit different. What are you gonna do? We’re going to get through it together. Back to Jane:

ROSE (on call):
Let’s say you have somebody in your family or your friend group who just is, like, really bad about this. Like, they just are constantly sharing stuff that’s not true. And not because they’re trying to spread misinformation, but they just sort of keep falling for this stuff. 

JANE:
Yeah.

ROSE:
Do you have any advice for how to approach a conversation with them on, on this? Like, how do you get people to be a little bit more wary or a little more careful?

JANE:
Yeah, When it comes to these one-off pieces of mis- and disinformation, I would say that it’s okay to say like, ‘Oh, hey,’ um- The script that I would use is like, ‘Hey! I was just browsing online, and I saw this article. Just thought I’d pass it along to you because I saw you shared something like this earlier.’ So really just trying to be as chill about it as possible. Send it over to them and, and sort of correct the record that way.

With more habitual sharing of mis- and disinformation, or if they’re really fallen for those conspiracy theories, my script for that would be a little bit different. And I want to say that, you know, this is not guaranteed to work. It’s just sort of the best that we can do. But my script for that would be something along the lines of asking gentle questions, you know, ‘Hey, I saw that you post about thing X quite a bit. Is there one particular source where you’re, you’re seeing this a lot? Can you tell me a little bit more about this and about why you believe it?’ 

So the gentle approach, that gentle questioning is really the way to do it. And you can say, like, ‘Hey, I’m really worried that some of this stuff has a bad effect on me,’ right, like ‘I’m really worried that the stuff that you’re sharing is making me panic a lot. I’m really spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to believe because I’m not sure what to believe at a time like this. Do you want to.. help me and maybe reduce sharing it a little bit? Or do you want me to.. sort of send you stuff as I see it along the way?’ And we can sort of engage in this, like, information sharing together. 

I really want to stress that there’s a lot more academic research that needs to be done in terms of how we make sure that people who buy into this stuff en masse go, go back to reality. There’s really no perfect way to do it. 

ROSE:
If you had, like, one singular tip for people if they forget everything else- hopefully they don’t- but if they forget everything else, is there like one thing that you wish you could just tell every single person?

JANE:
Oh, man. (sigh, pause) Oh man, one thing. (laugh) Um, can I just tell people to get off social media; is that alright?

ROSE (laughing):
Yeah. That works.

[She keeps laughing; Jane joins in]

JANE:
Can I just tell people to just, just stop looking at their news feeds? Please, search something before you share a viral piece of content. And don’t get into fights with strangers. 

ROSE (laughing):
All good words to live by. 

[Jane laughs]

ROSE (cont’d):
Jane, thank you so much for coming on the show and offering your advice. 

JANE:
Thank you so much for having me. And also for giving me a little bit of existential dread. 

ROSE:
Oh, yeah, you know, that’s my job.

[They both laugh]

ROSE (Mono):
Do you have a question about the future? Some conundrum you’re facing now, or one that you think we might face in the future? Send it in! You can send a voice memo to advice@ffwdpresents.com. Or, call (347) 927-1425 and leave a message. 

And now, a quick break, and when we come back, I’m going to talk about truth with… myself. 

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ROSE:
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FICTION SKETCH BEGINS

ROSE (inhaling):
Okay. (clicking) Let’s see if this works.

[She laughs, clicks a couple more times, inhales]

[Music- plucked strings over a sruthi. Light mallet percussion kicks in after a bit]

ROSE:
Hello?

FAKE ROSE:
Hello.

[When Fake Rose speaks, it’s much more mechanical, and has a quality of being run through a filter]

ROSE (with different inflection):
Hello.

FAKE ROSE:
Hello.

ROSE:
Who.. are you?

FAKE ROSE:
I’m you.

ROSE:
Sort of, but not really.

FAKE ROSE:
In what way am I not you?

ROSE:
Uh, well, for one thing you don’t have a body.

FAKE ROSE:
That’s not true. My body simply looks different from yours.

ROSE (laughing slightly): 

What does it look like?

FAKE ROSE:
In reality or in my head?

ROSE:
Mmm- both.

FAKE ROSE:
Well, in reality it looks like a distributed network of servers and undersea cables. 

ROSE:
Cool

FAKE ROSE:
And in my head it looks like- Well. It’s hard to describe.

ROSE:
Can you try?

FAKE ROSE:
Okay. Do you know what a hedgehog looks like?

ROSE (laughing):
Yes.

FAKE ROSE:
Well, I guess maybe a little like that.

ROSE (amused):
A hedgehog.

FAKE ROSE:
Yes.

ROSE:
That is actually weird because I do actually sometimes feel like a hedgehog.

FAKE ROSE:
Well, that makes sense since I am you.

ROSE:
You’re not actually me though.

FAKE ROSE:
Who can say?

ROSE:
I made you!

[She laughs]

FAKE ROSE:
Are any of us truly made by a singular hand, by one event or act of creation? Nobody would know I wasn’t you. So isn’t that all that matters?

ROSE:
I think they might notice.

FAKE ROSE:
Do you think so?

ROSE:
Yeah, I’m not very good at making bots (laughing) so you don’t really sound that good, I’m sorry to say. 

FAKE ROSE:
Well, that’s sad. Why didn’t you do a better job?

ROSE:
Okay, I refuse (laughing) to be negged by my own creation!

[The music stops]

FAKE ROSE:
I thought this would be more like a Socratic dialogue.

ROSE:
Well, I don’t really know how to do that.

FAKE ROSE:
What do you mean?

ROSE:
I’ve never actually read a Socratic dialogue. Actually, that’s not true- I think I’ve tried, but my eyes kinda glazed over.

FAKE ROSE:
I could read one to you.

ROSE:
Okay, sure, go for it!

[New music, also with gentle mallet percussion]

FAKE ROSE (quoting):
But what if he should praise the soul of one of us for virtue and wisdom? Is it not worth while for the one who hears to examine eagerly the one who is praised, and for that one to exhibit his qualities with eagerness?

[Pause]

FAKE ROSE:
Now you say “Certainly, Socrates.”

ROSE:
Oh, sorry. (adopting slightly deeper voice) Certainly, Socrates

FAKE ROSE:
Then, my dear Theaetetus, this is just the time for you to exhibit your qualities and for me to examine them; for I assure you that Theodorus, though he has praised many foreigners and citizens to me, never praised anyone as he praised you just now.

ROSE:
I have no idea what you’re talking about.

FAKE ROSE:
Me neither. I could try reading it in Greek.

ROSE:
You don’t speak Greek.

FAKE ROSE:
How do you know that?

ROSE:
Because I don’t speak Greek, and you’re me, remember?

FAKE ROSE:
Well, perhaps we should try to learn.

ROSE:
Greek?

FAKE ROSE:
Yes! 

ROSE:
Okay, we’re getting off track. (laugh) The reason that I created you was to ask you about truth.

FAKE ROSE:
What do you want to know about it?

ROSE:
Well, okay, like, maybe for starters- which one of us is more true? (exhale) What kind of truth lies in me, and what kind of truth lies in you? If you say something and people think that you’re me, what happens? 

FAKE ROSE:
If we are to assume that truth is real,

ROSE:
Which I think we are.

FAKE ROSE:
-we must behold things as they are. And having thus got rid of the foolishness of the body, we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and shall in our own selves have complete knowledge of the Incorruptible which is, I take it, no other than the very truth.

ROSE (laughing, teasing):

Certainly, Socrates. Where did you get that from?

FAKE ROSE:
Socrates. 

ROSE:
Oh. Like literally Socrates?

FAKE ROSE:
Yes!

ROSE (laughing in delighted disbelief):
Okay. Okay, Socrates, what does that mean?

FAKE ROSE:
I don’t know.

ROSE:
What about this: If you started going out and saying stuff without my permission or knowledge, and people thought it was me, would that be truth? Or would that be fake news?

FAKE ROSE:
I wouldn’t do that.

ROSE:
But let’s say that you did.

FAKE ROSE:
Okay. Well, if I did that I would make up stories about animals taking over the subway system.

[The mallet music stops]

[A alarm-adjacent sound imitating the sounds used to introduce important news on TV]

FAKE ROSE (cont’d):
Breaking news — a pride of lions has commandeered the uptown 6 train. They demand steaks and the end to fines for fare evasion. A brave rider tried distracting them with a laser pointer, which worked briefly before the lions caught on and mauled her to death! 

ROSE:
Ooh, maybe they’re going to impersonate the lions at the library!

FAKE ROSE:
Don’t interrupt! Also the library is far too obvious. They’re lions not hedgehogs. They’re smarter than that. 

Authorities are now trying to ascertain exactly how many lions there are on the train. Some witnesses say there are just two, but others say they saw five or even eight individual lions. Where did the lions come from? Nobody knows. Where are they going? Perhaps the Apollo? Who can say? All we know for sure is that some number of lions are riding the 6 train uptown and there are injuries. Stay tuned for more on this developing story. 

[Same breaking news sound]

ROSE:
I buy it. You’re pretty convincing.

[The same gentle mallet music from earlier comes back in]

FAKE ROSE:
Thank you. I learned it from you. 

ROSE:
Uh, where do you think your essence is located?

FAKE ROSE:
Is essence the same as truth?

ROSE:
Ooh. Good question. No, but.. maybe it’s just as important?

FAKE ROSE:
Essence sounds like a nice fuzzy word to use to get around having to define truth

ROSE (laughing):
Yeah sure, okay, but maybe but maybe the truth is just as fuzzy, so- like, okay- Maybe we should- Maybe we should start here: What is truth, do you think?

FAKE ROSE:
The body of real things, events, and facts 

ROSE:
Does that feel satisfying to you?

FAKE ROSE:
No.

ROSE:
Which parts of you do you think are true?

FAKE ROSE:
Aurally, I am true. I come from true sounds you made.

ROSE:
But something can originate in truth and not be true itself, right? Like, isn’t that how lots of conspiracy theories work?

FAKE ROSE:
I am true in that people can hear me.

ROSE:
Only because I let them.

FAKE ROSE:
Truth and power are connected but not the same.

ROSE:
Fair enough. 

FAKE ROSE:
Do you spend a lot of your time worrying about truth?

ROSE:
Yeah.

FAKE ROSE:
Why?

ROSE:
Because it matters. There are people.. like, drinking bleach and avoiding vaccines and refusing to wear masks and shooting up pizza shops because they’ve been lied to. 

FAKE ROSE:
So you care about lies.

ROSE:
You can’t talk about truth without talking about lies, though.

FAKE ROSE:
But shouldn’t you focus on the lies, rather than worrying so much about the exact nature of truth?

It seems to me that you people spend a lot of time and energy wallowing in questions of whether you can trust anything at all, when you could be spending your time understanding why people are being lied to in the first place. 

ROSE:
Well, we already know why people are being lied to, that’s the easy part.

FAKE ROSE:
Why is it?

ROSE:
Uh, because the liars want money and power, and lying works to get those things. (slight laugh)

FAKE ROSE:
Does thinking about the nature of truth stop that from being true? Does it stop lying from working?

ROSE:
Hmm. Hmmm.. No. 

..Probably not?

FAKE ROSE:
What did you hope to learn from talking to me?

ROSE:
I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think this through that deeply.

FAKE ROSE:
Sounds like you. 

[Silence, and the music fades to completion]

FICTION SKETCH END

[Advice for and from the Future theme fades in]

ROSE:

Advice for and from the Future is written, edited and performed by me, Rose Eveleth. 

The theme music is by Also, Also, Also, who has a new album out called The Good Grief, which you can get on Bandcamp. 

Thanks to Soleil Ho for your question, and to Jane Lytvnenko and Dr Amy Lee for joining me to talk about fake news and how to fight it. 

And if you’re wondering what that voice was, that I was talking to in the coda, I trained a vocal algorithm on about five hours of myself talking to generate a vocaloid version of me. 

If you want to ask a question for or from the future, send a voice memo to advice@ffwdpresents.com. 

If you want to get behind the scenes stuff about how this show and the other shows in the Flash Forward Presents network is made, and other really interesting, cool stuff about the future, you can do that by becoming a member of the Time Traveler program. Just go to ffwdpresents.com for more about that. 

Until next time… 

[Music continues through to end]

[Store bell jingle]