Presented here is a misinformation prevention reading list. The range of works presented here in this list is meant to be indicative and definitely not exhaustive: too many brilliant works out there. The emphasis is on insights from foundational and background issues about misinformation online. The importance of critical thinking and analytical thinking skills is also highlighted as prerequisite for the prevention of online misinformation. Also highlighted is content from professionals who work at social media platforms explaining how those platforms rank and rate content. This list is separated into two main categories: popular literature and more advanced literature. Popular literature is divided into books, reports/manuals/government documents, papers/articles, and blog posts/opinion. One hundred works are listed here, for reading, of which 40 are highly recommended (highlighted in blue font).
AVRAM TURING MISINFORMATION PREVENTION CURRICULUM
Reading list
Highly recommended works are highlighted in blue
Books
L.Mcintyre (2018). Post-Truth
J. Haber (2020). Critical Thinking
D. Levin (2020). A Field Guide to Lies
C. Otis (2020). True or False? A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News
M. Upson et al. (2021). Information Now: A Graphic Guide to Student Research and Web Literacy
N. Anstead (2021). Fake News
Reports/Monographs//Manuals/Government Documents
The Peak Performance Center (undated). Analytical Thinking and Critical Thinking
C. Silverman (2014). The Verification Handbook: Disinformation and Media Manipulation. European Journalism Center
C. Wardle and H. Derakhshan (2017). Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making. Council of Europe
CHEQ/University of Baltimore (2019). The Economic Cost of Bad Actors on the Internet
C. François (2019). Actors, Behaviors, Content: A Disinformation ABC. Transatlantic Working Group
J. Dorsey (2020). Testimony of Jack Dorsey Chief Executive Officer Twitter, Inc. U.S Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey (2020). American Views 2020: Trust, Media and Democracy – A Deepening Divide
S. Lewandowsky and J. Cook, (2020). The Conspiracy Theory Handbook. Center for Climate Change Communication; George Mason University
S. Aral (2021). Social Media at A Crossroads: 25 Solutions from The Social Media Summit @ MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
K. Couric et al. (2021). Commission on Information Disorder: Interim Report. Aspen Institute
HHS.gov Office of the Surgeon General (2021). Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment
Papers/Articles
B. Russell (1946). Philosophy for Laymen. Universities Quarterly
J. Constine (2016). How Facebook News Feed Works. TechCruch
S. Noble (2017). Google and the Misinformed Public. The Chronicle for Higher Education
R. DiResta (2018). Free Speech Is Not the Same as Free Reach. Wired
R. Gonzalez (2018). Don’t Want to Fall for Fake News? Don’t Be Lazy. Wired
E. Hodgin and J. Kahne (2018). Misinformation in the Information Age: What Teachers Can Do to Support Students. Social Education 82 (4), pp. 208-212
C. Wardle (2019). Understanding Information Disorder. First Draft
W. Sady (2019). “Ludwik Fleck”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
E. Zuckerman (2019). Building a More Honest Internet: What Would Social Media Look Like if It Served the Public Interest? Columbia Journalism Review
J. Cottone (2020). What Do You Know? Facts vs Truth. Psychology Today
D. Freedman (2020). As QAnon Conspiracy Theories Draw New Believers, Scientists Take Aim at Misinformation Pandemic. Newsweek
P. Michelman and S. Aral (2020). Can We Amplify the Good and Contain the Bad of Social Media? MIT Sloan Management Review
R. Calo et al. (2021). How Do You Solve A Problem Like Misinformation. Science Advances.
E. Gosnell et al. (2021). How Behavioural Science Reduced the Spread of Misinformation on Tik Tok. Irrational Labs
K. Hao (2021). How Facebook Got Addicted to Spreading Misinformation. MIT Technology Review
I. Leslie (2021). How to Have Better Arguments Online. The Guardian
U.Omoregie (2021) Information Disorder Online is an Issue of Information Quality. Academia Letters, Article 2999
J. Taylor (2021). Reddit Defends How it Tackles Misinformation As it Opens Its Australian Office. The Guardian
K. Chayaka (2022). The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety. The New Yorker
J. Golbeck (2022). Social Media and Shared Reality. Science
T. Lorenz (2022). Internet ‘Algospeak’ is Changing Our Language in Real Time, from ‘Nip Nops’ to ‘Le Dollar Bean.’ The Washington Post
A. Wanless (2023). There Is No Getting Ahead of Disinformation Without Moving Past It. Lawfare
Nature Editorial (2024). How Online Misinformation Exploits ‘Information Voids’ — and What to Do About It. Nature
M. Singh (2024). Don’t Believe What They Are Telling You About Misinformation. The New Yorker
Blog Posts/Opinion
P. Graham (2008). How To Disagree. Paul Graham
C. Wardle (2017). Fake News. It’s Complicated. Medium
d. boyd (2018). Did Media Literacy Backfire? Data & Society
d. boyd (2018). So You Think You Want Media Literacy…Do You? Data & Society
C. Meserole (2018). How Misinformation Spreads on Social Media. Brookings Institution
J. Smith et al. (2018). Designing New Ways to Give Context to News Stories. Facebook
C. Wardle (2018). Information Disorder: The Definitional Toolbox. First Draft
Facebook Help Centre (2021). Tips to Spot False News. Facebook
N. Clegg (2021). You and the Algorithm: It Takes Two to Tango. Facebook
A. Mantzarlis (2021). Spot Misinformation Online With These Tips. Google
R. Mansell (2025). Freedom of Expression on Social Media Must Come With Responsibility. LSE Blogs
Avram Turing Blog Posts (Highlights)
U. Omoregie (2021). “Non-Information” and “Off-Information” — Strange Information Disorder Variants. Avram Turing
U. Omoregie (2021). The ‘Harm Principle,’ Free Speech & Misinformation Online. Avram Turing
U. Omoregie (2021). Viral Content Online: Amplification, Friction & Info Quality. Avram Turing
K. Ryall (2021). Facts, Arguments and an Analytical Checklist. Avram Turing
More Advanced Material
J. Mill (1859). On Liberty
G. Frege (1892). Sense and Reference. The Philosophical Review 1948; 57 (3) pp. 209-230
W. James (1896). The Will to Believe. The New World, Volume 5: pp. 327-347
J. Dewey (1910). How We Think
G. Frege (1918), The Thought: A Logical Inquiry. Mind 1956; 65 (259) pp. 289-311
L. Wittgenstein (1921). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
B. Russell (1928). Sceptical Essays
L. Fleck (1935). The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact
(A good summary of this book and Ludwik Fleck’s philosophy can be found at: W. Sady, (2019). “Ludwik Fleck”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
A. Clark and D. Chalmers (1998). The Extended Mind. Analysis 58 (1) pp.7-19
L. Floridi (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction
D. Cryan et al. (2013). Introducing Logic: A Graphic Guide
V. Swami et al. (2014). Analytical Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Cognition; 133: 572-585
R. Gehl (2014). Reverse Engineering Social Media
T. Williamson (2015). Knowledge and Belief. 24.09x Minds and Machines, MITx (edX)
S. Zuboff (2015). Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization. Journal of Information Technology; 30(1), pp.75-89
D. Miller et al. (2016). How the World Changed Social Media
H. Allcott and M. Gentzkow (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election. Journal of Economic Perspectives; 31(2) pp.211-236
A. Marwick and R. Lewis (2017). Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Data & Society
R. Caplan et al. (2018). Dead Reckoning: Navigating Content Moderation After ‘Fake News.’ Data & Society
T. Gillespie (2018). Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media
J. Kavanagh and M. Ritch (2018). Truth Decay. Rand Corporation
S. Noble (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
A. Zhang et al. (2018). A Structured Response to Misinformation: Defining and Annotating Credibility Indicators in News Articles. Companion Proceedings of the World Wide Web Conference 2018, pp. 603-612
J. Cook et al. (2019). Deconstructing Climate Misinformation to Identify Reasoning Errors. Environmental Research Letters. 13(2):024018
M. Golebiewski and d. boyd (2019). Data Voids: Where Missing Data Can Easily Be Exploited. Data & Society
A. Mare et. al (2019). “Fake News” and Cyber-Propaganda in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recentering the Research Agenda. African Journalism Studies, 40 (4) pp. 1-12
G. Lim (2019). Disinformation Annotated Bibliography. Citizens Lab
N. Orestes (2019) Why Trust Science?
C. O’Connor and J. Weatherall (2019). The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread
S. Wolfram (2019). Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on the Internet Platforms. U.S Senate Committee on Communications, Technology, innovation and the Internet
U. Ammara et al. (2020). Analyzing Misinformation Through the Lens of Systems Thinking. Proceedings of the 2020 Truth and Trust Online; pp.55-63
S. Aral (2020). The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy and Our Health – and How We Must Adapt
C. Miller and C. Colliver (2020). Developing a Civil Society Response to Online Manipulation. Institute for Strategic Dialogue
L. Turico and M. Obrenovic (2020). Misinformation, Disinformation, Malinformation: Causes Trends and Their Influence on Democracy. Heinrich Böll Foundation
J. Bak-Coleman et al. (2021). Stewardship of Global Collective Behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA; 6:118(27)
R. Kuo and A. Marwick (2021). Critical Disinformation Studies: History, Power, and Politics. Misinformation Review
G. Pennycook et al. (2021). Shifting Attention to Accuracy Can Reduce Misinformation Online. Nature; 592, pp.590–595
S. Pinker (2021). Rationality: What It is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
C. Sunstein (2021). Liars: Falsehood and Free Speech in an Age of Deception
A. Acerbi et al. (2022). Fighting Misinformation or Fighting for Information? HKS Information Review
D. Chalmers (2022). Reality+ Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy
K. Eichhorn (2022). Content
S. Hare (2022). Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics.
G. Marcus (2022). Noam Chomsky and GPT-3: Are Large Language Models a Good Model of “Human” Language? https://garymarcus.substack.com
M. Zurko (2022). Disinformation and Reflections from Usable Security. IEEE Security & Privacy
E. Douek (2023). Content Moderation as System Thinking. Harvard Law Review
U. Omoregie and K. Ryall (2023). Misinformation Matters: Online Content and Quality Analysis
S. van der Linden (2023). Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity
K. Aslett et al. (2024). Online Searches to Evaluate Misinformation Can Increase its Perceived Veracity. Nature
U. Ecker et al. (2024). Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored. American Psychologist