By Richard Kim, Contributing Writer
Photo from USA The Vanguard

On Oct. 23, the Marx Library held its “Navigating the Misinformation Maze: Be Media Aware” event in collaboration with the Department of Communication. The event aimed to show how we can decode the truth behind misleading social media, disinformation, misinformation, and AI/deepfakes.

“Misinformation weeks aren’t new to the library ecosystem, and our faculty librarians wanted to put on something related to this topic,” said Kaitlyn Moody, the library technical assistant for government documents and serials.

Moody is a member of the Student Engagement Committee, which regularly arranges events at the Marx Library. Last semester, she helped organize a viewing of the April 8 solar eclipse. She expressed delight at how the eclipse event brought the campus community together and hoped that the misinformation event would do the same.

Held on the first and second floors of the Marx Library, there were numerous tables and exhibits about different issues such as artificial intelligence and social media algorithms. Some exhibits featured interactive games that attendees used to test their knowledge. The “Spot the Troll” game showed participants social media content and tested them on whether it originated from legitimate or troll accounts. The “Real or Not” quiz depicted how tricky it can be to tell whether an image is real or AI-generated. Lastly, the “Deepware Scanner” detected deepfake audio-visual content. Pizza and iced coffee were served at the event, and various prizes and spirit buttons were available to participants.

“Libraries must focus on information literacy. Misinformation has become rampant due to our social climate. Things are being pushed out to pull people to one side but they aren’t necessarily being fact-checked. There’s a big responsibility on tech companies such as Meta and Microsoft to combat deepfakes,” said Moody.

She hoped that the event was informative and created discussion.

“Whether it’s political or benign, misinformation is avoidable,” said Moody. “It’s important to build information literacy skills.”

U.S. Media Literacy Week is a nationwide initiative to advance media literacy education. This year, participating institutions celebrated the 10th annual Media Literacy Week from Oct. 21 to Oct. 25.