Garbage in, garbage out: Dissecting the disinformation that clouds our decisions

All of the choices we make have one thing in common: Our decisions are only as good as the information we have to base them on. And with the rise of disinformation, misinformation, media manipulation, and social media echo chambers, we’re finding it increasingly hard to know what information to trust and to feel confident in the decisions we make. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Matthew Baum and Joan Donovan, the research director for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, have been building a community of researchers and creating tools to help understand disinformation, where it comes from, and — hopefully — how to make it less of a threat in the future.