I have been reading former believers who managed to get out of these belief systems can be perhaps the best way to deprogram other people with the same beliefs. Perhaps if we feel the need in our communities, we could try programming with former believers. Or at least have the resources available to be able to connect people with them.

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I agree with Pat F. Extremism is both on the left and on the right. It is our responsibility as librarians to provide information so that everyone has the opportunity to make their own decisions as to where the truth lies.

College professors are the worst. My niece and nephew experienced this just recently where when they tried to question their professors left, liberal teachings, there was pushback from their professors. My niece who is graduating this May with a 4.0 in Criminal Justice and Psychology was asked by one of her Professors where she got most of her news from. When my niece replied "FOX News" her professor told her that she should "broaden her horizons".

Once we show people/students all of the information that is out there, then they have a right to form their own opinions.

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I really like Jessie's point about including people who have "been there" as part of any deprogramming. More generally--there are definitely less and more effective ways to change someone's mind. Striking a superior tone, and making someone feel lesser or stupid or morally bankrupt is incredibly counterproductive. Instead, asking questions, helping people to interrogate their own opinions and eventually their own ideologies, and modeling emapthy and open-mindedness is far, far more effective.

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Pat F: I don't think the point of this discussion is to debate to what extent there is extremism on both right and left. I shared the article because of the points it made about the role of media literacy / information literacy in radicalization. It happened to deal with right wing extremism. If others know of specific resources about the role of information literacy in a left-wing context, I would encourage them to share those resources.

Moreover, your last paragraph raises some concerns for me. (1) I don't think it's our job as information literacy educators to get into debates about right and left extremism. (2) Your comment that we should "help our patrons make their own decisions after looking at both sides." falls short of how I see our role. Your formulation sounds to me like it will lead to either extreme cynicism: "source A says this; source B says that, so I won't believe anything at all" or else confirmation bias: "I like what source A is saying so I will believe it because I want to." Neither of these is a good outcome and as information professionals we can do better. I hold that there is a methodology for evaluating information and we need to teach it. It starts by focusing on specific claims, not generalities. I'll post more on this separately.

p.s. Apologies if I have misunderstood your comments. Please correct me if so.

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With all due respect to everyone in this thread, I would like to take a minute to talk about the both sides argument. False equivalence is a rhetorical fallacy that is often employed in both the news and politics. I am not trying to get into a discussion on right vs left extremist groups, tactics, or ideologies, I just want to highlight how commonly fallacies appear in connection to controversial topics.

If we can help our library users to understand and spot these kinds of fallacies, it can help to think critically about the arguments being made and look deeper at the issue at hand. I hope I have not overstepped with this discussion, I am still trying to work on tactics to bring attention to fallacious arguments to my own users and community in a way that doesn't sound judgemental.

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Jessie S: I've been thinking about your comment that "False equivalence is a rhetorical fallacy". Not being a rhetoritician (rhetoricist?) I did a little research and decided that equivalency claims are an example of generalization (or sometimes "hasty generalization". As such, I think they can be met with an information literacy, fact checking response -- what are the specific facts to base a judgment that A is equivalent to B. If we can agree on the facts, then maybe we can make a judgment about the claim of equivalence. Or we may find ourselves debating another fallacy, which is "moral equivalence". But I don't think you can have a productive debate about moral equivalence without getting past generalizations and into specific facts.
P.S. I'm using the Purdue OWL site as my main source here: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html

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This is where I struggle, because I want to be able to help everyone, even though I know I can’t. One of the scariest things about misinformation on the internet/social media, especially misinformation that leads to radicalization, is that people can create their own realities, then create their own bubbles, all in the safety of their own homes. This creates a self-reinforcing environment. As Dave points out, even children can fall victim. You could be streaming a movie in one room, while your teenager is in another room streaming radicalizing content on YouTube and joining a Facebook group of a community of believers.

As others have pointed out, we need strong information literacy education, and I totally agree. But how do we reach the people who have created a false reality bubble and who may never enter a library because “everything is on Google?” How can we education people about the harmful effects of misinformation if they think, “this could never happen to me?”

I keep brainstorming and trying to think of ways we could break into those bubbles. How can we use social media algorithms to our advantage? Perhaps if we are aware of a particular message that is being spread around our local community, we can create a social media campaign that might get through, because we would be both local and talking about the issue.

Another way to break into people’s bubbles would be through targeted advertising. Social media was created for advertisers to send messages to certain targeted demographics. This is definitely an expensive option, but perhaps we could find a way to collaborate with social media companies to send targeted public service announcements to people who are actively involved in specific groups. Messaging could involve education on radicalization tactics, countering misinformation, how to find helpful resources and support through the library. The message might be more accepted if it comes from a library rather than a social media company.

Assuming this kind of collaboration was possible, does it cross an ethical line? Libraries are committed to privacy. Targeting users with specific interests in specific groups could be intrusive. Also, because there are so many platforms this would require a lot of time and resources.

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Hi Jessie,
I tend to prefer "information literacy education" as I feel it encapsulates various aspects of media/news, scientific, historical, and digital literacy, all of which are important components of this societal issue. I agree that we must have universal standards for information literacy education that are woven into schools across the country. There are national standards already in place, but they act as a guide to states, which have their own standards in place. I am not certain about the exact details of how these work, but I remember using state standards in college when I studied education.

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Yes, it does make sense to require schools to teach research skills and, to some extent, schools already are required to teach research skills under The Common Core Standards.

The Common Core Standards are the national educational standards that guide education in most of our country. ~42 states have adopted The Common Core Standards, and teachers in these states are now required by law to teach students these standards.

The Common Core Standards require that students be taught research skills. However, there are several reasons schools are falling short.

If research skills are not included on standardized tests, they aren't often taught. In the schools where I taught, classroom teachers often felt like it was a challenge to teach students the math and reading standards that would be assessed on standardized tests. Teaching research skills was less of a priority.

Also, school librarians were not recognized by classroom teachers as the go to person in the building to teach research skills. It took time to explain my role and build trust with teachers so that they would begin to collaborate with me to teach research skills. To address this, I would like the Common Core Standards to require that research skills be taught by trained school librarians.

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