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A Surprisingly Effective Way to Fight Misinformation | Dave Jorgenson | TED

12:35Added Aug 30, 2026

What if the best defense against misinformation isn’t panic, but a punchline? Journalist and comedian Dave Jorgenson explores how misinformation has prolifer...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. 00:03I'm Dave.
  2. 00:05I've spent pretty much my entire adult life
  3. 00:08working in video journalism and media.
  4. 00:10But what is media, and what forms does it take?
  5. 00:13Let me show you an example.
  6. 00:15This is quipu.
  7. 00:17It was used by the Incas in South America.
  8. 00:19It’s a system of knots and strings.
  9. 00:22And every knot, the shapes, the colors, dimensions, numbers,
  10. 00:25all of it works together to tell a story.
  11. 00:29I can't make heads or tails of that.
  12. 00:31I don't know if you can imagine something like that today on social media,
  13. 00:34but just to put that as an image, this is what it might look like.
  14. 00:37This is actually the first chapter of "Twilight."
  15. 00:40But while you and I may not understand quipu or how it works,
  16. 00:44this is a form of media.
  17. 00:45And let me give you another example of media, from across the pond,
  18. 00:49in around 370 BC.
  19. 00:52So Plato wrote this story where he was imagining a conversation
  20. 00:56with his real-life teacher, Socrates, and a student, Phaedrus.
  21. 01:01Sorry, this is kind of hard to read, let me fix.
  22. 01:04That's better.
  23. 01:05(Laughter)
  24. 01:07Can everyone understand it now?
  25. 01:09Just to translate it for you,
  26. 01:10eventually, the conversation veers into a debate about speech-giving,
  27. 01:15or whether or not you should do it.
  28. 01:16Kind of like TED moderators deciding whether or not I should be at this event.
  29. 01:20(Laughter)
  30. 01:21Spoiler alert -- I'm here.
  31. 01:24So I think I'm supposed to be.
  32. 01:27The conversation eventually veers into another part,
  33. 01:31where Plato, as Socrates,
  34. 01:33says that the written word is actually bad,
  35. 01:37that it could be misinterpreted and taken out of context.
  36. 01:40So, in other words, people have always been afraid of media
  37. 01:43and how it could be manipulated.
  38. 01:47(Laughter)
  39. 01:48So hundreds of years later,
  40. 01:50one of the first films ever come out, black and white, it’s a train platform.
  41. 01:55This is a French film, so these are French people and a French train.
  42. 01:58That train is coming really fast.
  43. 02:01Duck.
  44. 02:02(Laughter)
  45. 02:04Do you guys see ...?
  46. 02:06Oh, OK. It was coming right at us.
  47. 02:10Anyway, rumor has it that's how people reacted to it
  48. 02:14when they first saw it in theaters.
  49. 02:15They jumped out of the way.
  50. 02:18(Laughter)
  51. 02:20Very scary.
  52. 02:21We just weren't ready for that type of media yet.
  53. 02:24Decades later, in 1938,
  54. 02:26there was a radio broadcast that scared a lot of Americans.
  55. 02:30Here's a snippet of it.
  56. 02:31(Recording) Ladies and gentlemen,
  57. 02:33we interrupt our program ... to bring you a special bulletin
  58. 02:36from the Intercontinental Radio News.
  59. 02:38At 20 minutes [to] 8 central time,
  60. 02:39Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois,
  61. 02:43reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas
  62. 02:46occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars.
  63. 02:49The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen
  64. 02:51and moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity.
  65. 02:54Dave Jorgenson: You guys hear? That’s coming towards Earth.
  66. 02:57We all know that didn’t really happen,
  67. 02:58but people listening thought it did.
  68. 03:00It was an Orson Welles broadcast.
  69. 03:03And this is him talking to reporters, explaining what happened.
  70. 03:06Those reporters look very concerned.
  71. 03:08And they have reason to be, because people heard this broadcast
  72. 03:11and were literally in the streets forming mobs.
  73. 03:14There was police officers outside the CBS studios in New York,
  74. 03:17and the executives were trying to shut the broadcast down.
  75. 03:21It was a widespread issue.
  76. 03:23The CBS affiliate in Cleveland,
  77. 03:25where the host was the future Tonight Show host Jack Paar,
  78. 03:28he was there trying to convince listeners that it was a fictional story,
  79. 03:32but they didn't believe him.
  80. 03:34People were calling in, and he's like,
  81. 03:36"No, this is an adaption of 'War of the Worlds.'
  82. 03:39It's fictional. It's not real."
  83. 03:42And so every time there's a new form of media, we have to adapt.
  84. 03:46You guys remember email chains?
  85. 03:47I dug this one up the other day.
  86. 03:49“DON’T DELETE THIS!!! (it scared the crap outta me)
  87. 03:52Once there was ...”
  88. 03:53This was starting to sound familiar.
  89. 03:54"... suddenly, it all went to chaos. Forward this email."
  90. 03:58Everyone forward it. Get out your phones.
  91. 04:00(Laughter)
  92. 04:01So obviously, we figured out, eventually, that these emails were scams,
  93. 04:06and so were the Nigerian princes that shared them.
  94. 04:09Though my Nigerian prince was real.
  95. 04:11Basically, I spent a lot of my job as a journalist
  96. 04:14trying to explain to people what they're getting wrong online
  97. 04:18versus actually talking about breaking news.
  98. 04:20Because all of this is so complicated.
  99. 04:22And there’s a word for that
  100. 04:24in understanding media, it’s called media literacy,
  101. 04:26which is best defined as the ability to access, analyze,
  102. 04:30evaluate and create media in various forms.
  103. 04:33So I kind of soft-launched my career into media literacy
  104. 04:37with this viral PEZ video.
  105. 04:39I don't know if anyone saw this, this was back in 2021.
  106. 04:42It was someone showing you a PEZ dispenser,
  107. 04:44and that you can actually load it
  108. 04:46by putting the candy in through the bottom.
  109. 04:48That is patently false.
  110. 04:49I was very angry to see this video going viral, and all the comments saying,
  111. 04:53"Wow, I didn't know that."
  112. 04:54Well, you didn't know it because it wasn't true.
  113. 04:57And as someone who's made 5,000 journalism TikToks,
  114. 04:59I was like, "I'm getting to the bottom of this."
  115. 05:01(Video) You may have seen a TikTok recently
  116. 05:04where someone takes a wrapped stack of PEZ,
  117. 05:06puts it in the bottom of a dispenser,
  118. 05:07and then, it comes out fully unwrapped.
  119. 05:09It's fake.
  120. 05:11There's a plastic bottom
  121. 05:12that the candy would not be able to get around.
  122. 05:14I instantly knew this because I was a supercool kid
  123. 05:17that collected 400 PEZ dispensers.
  124. 05:18But what about the other normal and cool kids
  125. 05:21that didn't see the obvious cut in that TikTok?
  126. 05:23Video can be a very powerful vehicle for misinformation,
  127. 05:27and when it's something much more important than PEZ,
  128. 05:29it can be really dangerous too.
  129. 05:31Here's some false claims that were made on the internet just last week.
  130. 05:34(Music)
  131. 05:37[Dave was cool in high school]
  132. 05:39(Laughter)
  133. 05:42My editor suggested the last one.
  134. 05:44Who knows if that's true.
  135. 05:46Anyway, so, you know, unless you were a PEZ head like me,
  136. 05:49that story wasn't probably that important to you.
  137. 05:52But it was a nice way in to talking about media literacy,
  138. 05:55especially on TikTok,
  139. 05:56where people were taking what they saw at face value
  140. 05:59and not really challenging it.
  141. 06:01And sometimes, what happens is that everything you see online,
  142. 06:05people think is true.
  143. 06:07So one example of that, more recently, up-to-date, in 2025,
  144. 06:12is this video from Will Smith's social media team.
  145. 06:15He was on a tour.
  146. 06:17I heard some grumbles.
  147. 06:19Get ready for your minds to be blown,
  148. 06:21because this video was a compilation of a lot of the crowds
  149. 06:25at his different concerts, going through Europe,
  150. 06:28and it was pretty clearly AI-generated.
  151. 06:31There's a lot of extra fingers on these people.
  152. 06:34Though I do like this guy.
  153. 06:35He's like, "I'm not real. But yeah."
  154. 06:39Anyway, people were, understandably, pretty upset about this,
  155. 06:42and they were really upset not just that it was AI-generated,
  156. 06:45but that it appeared that Will Smith tried to generate
  157. 06:49people holding signs like this, which is obviously pretty upsetting.
  158. 06:54Will Smith is someone who is perhaps a little polarizing
  159. 06:57after his Oscar performance at the awards show.
  160. 07:00And for people who feel a certain way about it,
  161. 07:04it was very easy to get very angry about this video.
  162. 07:07But it turns out the truth is much more complicated.
  163. 07:09This is an AI-generated crowd,
  164. 07:11but it comes from real photos of the real crowds at Will Smith's concerts.
  165. 07:16So here's a more in-depth look.
  166. 07:18(Video) You may have seen the videos
  167. 07:20posted on Will Smith's Instagram and YouTube account
  168. 07:23that are almost definitely AI-generated.
  169. 07:25The hands have a bajillion fingers, one sign says “FR6” instead of “FRESH.”
  170. 07:28And generally speaking, people just look off.
  171. 07:31They all kind of look like this.
  172. 07:32This AI is so obvious, I can't believe they thought we would fall for this.
  173. 07:36Well these may actually be real Will Smith fans.
  174. 07:39What? No, they aren't.
  175. 07:40The video is very likely AI-generated,
  176. 07:42but the photos themselves seem to actually come from people at the concerts.
  177. 07:45Look at this: the photo matches the video,
  178. 07:48but instead, everyone looks real.
  179. 07:50And this clip looks like it was taken from this photo.
  180. 07:53So the video is fake, but the people are real.
  181. 07:55Exactly. But the video he posted on YouTube is even more fake.
  182. 07:58Last week, the YouTube Creator Liaison
  183. 08:01admitted that YouTube is using image enhancement
  184. 08:03to unblur and de-noise YouTube shorts.
  185. 08:05OK, so YouTube is using AI.
  186. 08:07He's arguing that image enhancement is not the same thing as AI,
  187. 08:10because it's like the technology that most of your smartphones use
  188. 08:13when you're taking a video.
  189. 08:15YouTube says they'll soon have a button to opt out.
  190. 08:17It's a good thing we have a media literacy class.
  191. 08:20This class isn't real. It's for a video.
  192. 08:22What? Are you even the vice president?
  193. 08:24(Laughter)
  194. 08:28I'm not the vice president, but I am considering shaving my beard.
  195. 08:31(Laughter)
  196. 08:34That comparison is happening a lot.
  197. 08:36(Laughter)
  198. 08:39(Laughter and applause)
  199. 08:45It's been a really long year.
  200. 08:46(Laughter)
  201. 08:48These people don't have enough extra fingers on their hands
  202. 08:52to count how many times we get stuff wrong on TikTok or anywhere in media.
  203. 08:57It's just really hard to keep up.
  204. 08:59And it's also hard to keep up with what's happening
  205. 09:02and where things even came from.
  206. 09:03Like a rapture prediction.
  207. 09:05Do you guys know there was a rapture in September?
  208. 09:08Oh well, I guess none of us made it.
  209. 09:11(Laughter)
  210. 09:12So this rapture happened, and people were all over TikTok,
  211. 09:15and they were talking about how they were going to leave food for their kids
  212. 09:19in case their kids aren't raptured, which is,
  213. 09:21I don't know, maybe a parenting issue.
  214. 09:24(Laughter)
  215. 09:25Anyway, they're making all these TikToks,
  216. 09:27and I'm watching all these
  217. 09:29and secretly enjoying them a little, but also wondering,
  218. 09:31why is no one questioning where this prediction came from
  219. 09:35and why it happened?
  220. 09:36It turns out the prediction wasn't on TikTok.
  221. 09:39It came from YouTube.
  222. 09:40It was this guy, from South Africa, who said that in 2018,
  223. 09:43he had a dream that a rapture was coming in September 2025.
  224. 09:47But for some reason, he waited until 2025 to post a YouTube video about it.
  225. 09:52Anyway, I had to make a more in-depth video for the people,
  226. 09:55the pre-raptured masses.
  227. 09:57(Video) The rapture is happening.
  228. 09:59Oh my God, what do we do?
  229. 10:00I don't see anything in here about a rapture.
  230. 10:02That’s because the rapture isn’t in there.
  231. 10:04But I saw it on TikTok. Everything I see online is true.
  232. 10:07Let's take this one chunk at a time.
  233. 10:09Hurry up, there's only a few hours left.
  234. 10:11The word "rapture" isn't in the Bible, but there is a possible reference.
  235. 10:15In First Thessalonians, chapter four, verse 16, Paul describes the living
  236. 10:19being caught up in the clouds together with the dead.
  237. 10:22But that could mean anything.
  238. 10:23And as far as today’s rapture prediction goes,
  239. 10:26it just came from a YouTube video of some guy in South Africa
  240. 10:29saying that the rapture was coming.
  241. 10:30"- There's a date? - There is a date."
  242. 10:33And he's a pastor, right?
  243. 10:34Nope, just a dude who said he saw Jesus in a dream in 2018.
  244. 10:38But why today?
  245. 10:39Why this year?
  246. 10:40He said it was because of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
  247. 10:42Rapture predictions aren't new,
  248. 10:44and they often take off during uncertain times.
  249. 10:47That makes sense.
  250. 10:48For example, I don't even know if I'd be able to watch Jimmy Kimmel,
  251. 10:51because ABC brought him back,
  252. 10:53but the affiliates Sinclair and Nexstar have still banned him,
  253. 10:56and so there's a lot of uncertainty around that example.
  254. 10:59(Laughter)
  255. 11:02Anyway, it does make sense, though,
  256. 11:05that people had an emotional reaction to something like a rapture.
  257. 11:08We've always had emotional reactions to media.
  258. 11:11It's because we're afraid of it, a lot of the time,
  259. 11:14and it turns out that fear and misinformation
  260. 11:16travel six times faster than the truth.
  261. 11:20So what emotion is more powerful than fear?
  262. 11:24I think I don't know ... Whoa!
  263. 11:27(Laughter)
  264. 11:29I think it's humor.
  265. 11:31(Laughter)
  266. 11:32And humor is my way into informing the masses
  267. 11:36and really kind of meeting them where they are,
  268. 11:38because it's much easier to talk to someone
  269. 11:40when you make yourself the butt of the joke
  270. 11:42rather than talk down to someone.
  271. 11:44They're not necessarily going to respond to that.
  272. 11:46And so by using humor, I've always been able to make these videos
  273. 11:49and kind of find my way into this world of misinformation and scary media.
  274. 11:54(Laughter)
  275. 11:57This was all a long con to get that photo, by the way.
  276. 11:59(Laughter)
  277. 12:01Now if you went back in time and handed seven-year-old me an iPhone,
  278. 12:05I wouldn't know what to do with it.
  279. 12:07I thought my dog was a footrest.
  280. 12:08We've always been scared of different forms of media.
  281. 12:12So my argument is that, ultimately,
  282. 12:15we don't need to be scared of media,
  283. 12:17as long as we acknowledge that every time there's a new form of media,
  284. 12:21a new, unprecedented form,
  285. 12:22we can overcome it and be a little bit less scared
  286. 12:25and have a little more fun.
  287. 12:29I'm not afraid of you.
  288. 12:30(Laughter)
  289. 12:31Thank you.
  290. 12:32(Cheers and applause)