Addressing Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Misinformation on Social Media

Earlier this month, The Social Institute polled more than 1,400 students in fifth through 12th grade from K–12 independent and public schools across the country to determine where they hear the most information about Ukraine. The top answer was social media. In 2018, Dictionary.com chose its Word of the Year as “misinformation.” With the ubiquitous use of social media, misinformation—when someone spreads information that is not accurate, but they don’t know it’s wrong—started spreading quickly. In an interview, Jane Solomon, Dictionary.com’s linguist-in-residence, said “Misinformation has been around for a long time, but over the last decade or so the rise of social media has really, really changed how information is shared.”