Week 2 Assignment - Khalil Siddeeq

One of the more high-profile cases of disinformation which is 'relatively' harmless but straddles the line between satire and genuine attempts to sow confusion is a viral video which emerged in the wake of the 2023 'Crazy Plane Lady' TikTok. Said viral video, which was also in TikTok form, is of a man claiming to have been on the plane and witnessed the 'Plane Lady''s interaction with an enigmatic passenger in a hoodie, culminating in the speaker saying the man in the hoodie winked at him, but winked sideways, implying that he was inhuman in some way. Notably, the one making this claim includes a disclaimer in the video description that the story of the hoodie person was fictional, but this didn't stop his video from being shared far beyond its target audience and being stitched by dozens of people who seemed to take what he was saying seriously. Additionally, there are sour associations between conspiracies of secret inhumans and 'lizard people' with anti-Semitic and xenophobic tendencies by the people who peddle them. According to Caroline Jack in "Lexicon of Lies", this instance seems to be part hoax, part satire, part disinformation. Whether there was any intent to truly deceive is unclear, and this further illustrates just how hard it is to classify inaccurate information in any of these boxes.

Another recent example of something which intentionally or unintentionally straddles the line between dis and misinformation is another viral TikTok purportedly documenting the last moments of the Titan submersible disaster. If this is a purposeful instance of disinformation, what makes it extra insidious is how much effort was put into the production to make it look presentable. The TikTok is a sensational, almost documentary-style breakdown minute-by-minute of what was allegedly said and transmitted between the submersible and the mothership. The poster uses the word 'unconfirmed' to describe these logs, but doesn't let that stop him from spinning a gripping tale with voice-acting and animation which amassed more than 3 million likes and tens of millions of views. This example demonstrates that information need only appear convincing to gain traction, and wrapping half-truths inside of truths is extremely effective at making it so viewers don't even reasonably question what it is they're seeing.