Wes Regan

So we might believe that bracelet is going to prevent COVID or this particular clothing item is going to increase your whatever metabolism or something by X amount, when in fact there might not be any scientific validation of those claims.

And yet you want to help your

grandma or mom or friend or whoever it is.

And so, you know, or you yourself might want to believe that that's going to help because you're looking for something.

And so you might be inclined to share that thinking that this looks credible, maybe, or has a whiff of credibility.

So let's go with it.

Whereas disinformation would be a little more nefarious.

And that's often spread by state actors or other powerful interests who are really looking to shape

beliefs and discourse and oftentimes with the goal of undermining our trust in democratic institutions or each other for that matter.

And I actually specialize mostly in how conspiracy theory beliefs as a form of misinformation or sometimes disinformation can undermine discussions on urban change and what's happening in communities and make it difficult for urban planners to go in and have meaningful discussions about what's happening in cities with people.

Yeah, or to undermine trust in rigorously tested vaccines or to undermine trust in Canada's healthcare system or to some sort of agenda that is going to have a negative impact on society.

And trust is an important part of what keeps a democratic society functioning.

Trust in each other, a belief that our neighbors are not, you know...

craven, awful, immoral people, but also want to see what's good for the country, even if they might have a different idea of what the policy might be for that thing, or trust in scientific expertise or other sorts of technical expertise, which we rely on because we can't individually make sense of everything.

We have to have trusted sources.

And this is often where I think social media influencers and content creators really muddy the waters in terms of what we can believe when we come in contact with information online.

Yeah, there's definitely, there's an affective quality to this.

So, you know, we don't just think rationally when we're faced with, you know, information.

We also have bodily feelings and intuition, you know, emotions that are involved in how we process that information.

And there's definitely, you know, beta endorphins or other, you know, chemicals that are being released, you know, when we're seeing something, we read something, we share something.