The Big Question: Are Concerns About Misinformation Overblown?

On October 30, 1938, a dramatization of H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds” aired on American radio, supposedly triggering mass panic as listeners mistook fiction for a real Martian invasion. According to subsequent academic studies, over a million people believed they were experiencing an actual alien attack.

But this widely accepted narrative is largely myth. National radio surveys revealed only 2% of the audience reported listening to anything resembling the broadcast. Those who did tune in generally recognized it as fiction, often referring to “the play” or mentioning narrator Orson Welles. The academic analysis had misinterpreted accounts of listeners being frightened by the drama as panic about a genuine invasion.

This historical misinterpretation mirrors our current concerns about misinformation. Headlines frequently warn about millions exposed to falsehoods online. A 2018 Gallup survey found Americans estimated that two-thirds of news they encountered on social media was misinformation. But the data tells a more nuanced story.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, visits to English-language news sites labeled “untrustworthy” by NewsGuard—including outlets like Breitbart and Daily Wire—increased from 163 million to 194 million. However, during the same period, traffic to “trustworthy” sources like the BBC and The Guardian surged from 5 billion to 8 billion visits. In essence, credible websites received 40 times more traffic than questionable ones.

This suggests outright misinformation may be less prevalent than commonly believed. The challenge isn’t solely about preventing belief in false content but also about not discounting what’s true. Current efforts focusing exclusively on reducing misinformation risk undermining confidence in accurate information as well. As mathematician Henri Poincaré noted at the turn of the 20th century: “To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.”

The tobacco industry demonstrated the strategic power of doubt in a 1969 memo stating, “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.” Their goal wasn’t to promote alternative facts but to undermine the notion that sufficient evidence existed to warrant action.

More concerning than outright falsehoods are factually accurate statements presented without proper context. A 2021 study found that among vaccine-related content on Facebook during the COVID vaccine rollout, only 0.3% was flagged by fact-checkers as false or misleading. The content with the greatest impact on vaccine confidence was technically accurate but potentially misleading.

For example, the most viewed link—reaching seven times more people than all fact-checked misinformation combined—was a Chicago Tribune headline: “A Healthy Doctor Died Two Weeks After Getting a Covid vaccine; CDC Is Investigating Why.” While factually correct, this headline lacked context about vaccine safety and relative risk compared to COVID-19 infection.

In encounters with conspiracy theorists, it’s surprising how much of their evidence is technically accurate. The problem often lies not in the underlying facts but in how they’re interpreted—through logical fallacies or contextual distortions. This demonstrates that labeling content as “misinformation” isn’t sufficient; people need conceptual tools to identify skewed framing, cherry-picked data, and flawed cause-and-effect claims.

We must move beyond the notion that people face a tsunami of falsehoods. Dismissing technically accurate information as untrue undermines trust. Warning that most online content is fabricated distracts from the greater challenge of ensuring accurate interpretation of factually correct information.

Both extremes—assuming falsehoods are widespread and easily identified, or believing most content requires no critical examination—are convenient but potentially harmful approaches. The reality of navigating mistaken beliefs and misplaced trust online requires a more thoughtful, nuanced strategy that acknowledges both the prevalence of accurate information and the complexity of its interpretation.