Mistinformation

Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody, Mist (2007)

Sometimes, it’s hard to see what is true, when everything is shrouded in fog.

Fog? You mean the atmospheric effect, or the lost silent movie?

Um, no.

The book, then?

No.

Maybe the John Carpenter film?

No! Oh, wait! Not fog! MIST! That’s right... MIST.

Ok, so... the Steven King novella?

No, but based on it, I think.

Ok, so... The 2007 film? Or maybe the 2017 TV series?

Well, I liked both of them, and they’re both based on the same story, but I was really thinking of the movie. There is a scene <SPOILER ALERT> where Mrs. Carmody (played brilliantly by Marcia Gay Harden) refuses to allow David (played by Thomas Jane) and a group of survivors to leave the grocery store in which they are gathered. Mrs. Carmody is devoutly religious (previously seen by almost everyone in town as a “nut”) and has come to the conclusion that the mist was sent to the town as divine punishment. Over time, more and more of the townsfolk have gathered around her, and support her as she begins to preach.

As she becomes more and more aggressive and her words become more violent, the tension between the two groups increases, to the point at which she insists that a boy be sacrificed to the mist, and her followers attempt to take the boy by force, sparking a violent confrontation.

As the violence begins to ramp up, a gunshot shocks the entire group into silence. Mrs. Carmody stands still, while her followers scatter as Ollie (played by Toby Jones), the mild-mannered assistant manager of the supermarket, walks out. He has shot Mrs. Carmody in the stomach, and she drops to her knees. After a long moment, Ollie very deliberately aims and fires again, shooting Mrs. Carmody in the head.

One of the main themes of the story is that everything is shrouded in mist, and no one really knows what is going on. While the question of what is actually happening is on everyone’s mind, most of the discussion is around the best next step. David and his group feel that their best course of action is to leave the supermarket and try to leave the area, while others feel that they should stay and try to reinforce their position.

In contrast, Mrs. Carmody decides that she knows exactly what is going on, and why, and that they need to sacrifice people to “save” themselves – both physically and spiritually. Her certainty is appealing to many, leading to division between the groups, resulting in the chaotic conflict.

The first gunshot shocks everyone, but I find the long pause and cold deliberation of the second shot to be even more shocking. For a moment, it cuts through all of the chaos, but David knows it is only temporary, so his group leaves as quickly as they can.

In order to survive, we act on what we know, or think we know. But how much of the information in our heads is accurate? And how can we know? I’ve written about critical thinking a number of times, and misinformation as well, and think that developing ways to know how to know true things is vital to our survival.

Consider Mrs. Carmody. She knows that the area is shrouded in mist, knows that people have disappeared or died when they went into the mist, and has seen “monstrous” shapes in the mist. From this, she leaps to believing that all of this is divine punishment and that the solution is human sacrifice.

Even if she believed that the mist was supernatural, why would she conclude that it’s a punishment? Or that the people in the supermarket were the ones being punished? Maybe they were the ones being saved? And even if it were divine punishment, how did she arrive at human sacrifice as the solution? And how did she decide who should be sacrificed?

And this is with a character who seems to genuinely believe what she is talking about. In our current environment, we are dealing not only with misinformation, but also with disinformation and malinformation – intended to deliberately mislead us for a myriad of reasons.

This brings us to MIST.

In 2023, psychologists at the University of Cambridge developed the first validated “misinformation susceptibility test” (known as MIST), with which they hope to measure the degree to which people are susceptible to fake headlines. This test was deployed by the US polling organization YouGov.

The results were analyzed against several factors, including age, amount of time spent online (recreationally), the sources through which people consumed news, and their political affiliation. I expect future studies will investigate questions around cause and effect, and will help us better understand the relationships between these different factors. For example, are people who get their news from Truth Social more likely to be Republican? Or are Republicans more likely to use Truth Social? Or are these variables unrelated?

The study found that older respondents were less susceptible to misinformation than younger people, in contrast with the common belief that “digital natives” would be better able to recognize misinformation.

The correlation between amount of time spent online recreationally and susceptibility to misinformation was not surprising, nor was the fact that Republicans were more susceptible to misinformation.

What I found most interesting, though, was the apparent impact of what people identified as their sources of news. People who consumed sources such as The Associated Press, NPR, and Axios scored well, while those who consume news from social media sources like Snapchat, Truth Social, and WhatsApp scored badly.

While there is a lot of work still to do in this area, I think the MIST test and the YouGov survey are an excellent step in improving our understanding of misinformation and our susceptibility to it. One major challenge I see is around cross-checking the accuracy of the news sources and measuring the degree to which the accuracy of a given source has changed over time.

As an example, consider the recent coverage of Donald Trump by US “mainstream media”. Apparently as a result of his actions, particularly since January 2025 (such as suing CBS, or cutting funding for NPR and PBS), “mainstream” coverage of Trump has been noticeably more favourable (or at least less unfavourable) towards Trump and his administration. In a recent MSNBC piece on the Trump concentration camp in Florida, the hosts appear to be carefully avoiding making statements which could be considered to be “against” the administration – almost certainly to try and sidestep future lawsuits or attacks from Trump. Instead, they seem to be giving more air time to Democrat representatives, who can offer their opinions without putting the network at (as much) risk.

As Trump and his supporters continue trying to push the US towards authoritarianism and fascism, it becomes more and more important to use critical thinking and intellectual humility to try and fight misinformation, and to fight against lies and disinformation.

For one thing, try the test for yourself! You may find the results interesting.

When I tried it, I was a bit nervous about how well I would score, and was very pleased that I got all 20. Sadly, I think this just means that the misinformation in my head is about things they were not asking about, but if we try to always use critical thinking, double-check sources, and be humble, we’ll at least have a chance.

RG Results from MIST-20

Cheers!