A surprisingly effective way to fight misinformation | Dave Jorgenson

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily

Episode: A surprisingly effective way to fight misinformation | Dave Jorgenson
Date: February 23, 2026
Host: Elise Hu (TED)
Speaker: Dave Jorgenson (Journalist, Comedian, Video Creator)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dave Jorgenson explores the timeless challenge of adapting to new forms of media and the ongoing battle against misinformation. Drawing on history, his own viral videos, and plenty of humor, Jorgenson demonstrates why media literacy has never been more crucial—and how laughter can be a surprisingly effective tool in helping people separate fact from fiction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Media? (03:37–06:17)

• Historical Examples:

  • Quipu (03:37): Jorgenson introduces the Incan record-keeping device, demonstrating that media has always taken diverse forms, even those we might not recognize as such.
  • Ancient Media (04:36): He references Plato's writing on the potential dangers of written words being misinterpreted—a fear about new media that’s centuries old.
  • Early Film Reaction (05:44): The Lumière brothers’ film of a train startled early audiences: "Rumor has it that's how people reacted to it when they first saw it in theaters. They jumped out of the way. Very scary. We just weren't ready for that type of media yet." (Dave Jorgenson, 06:17)

• Insight: We have always been unsettled by new media technologies and their ability to be misunderstood or manipulative.

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2. Media-Induced Panic Through the Ages (06:17–09:37)

• 1938 Orson Welles' “War of the Worlds” Radio Broadcast (06:43):

  • Caused mass panic because people mistook fiction for fact.
  • "People heard this broadcast and were literally in the streets forming mobs." (Dave Jorgenson, 07:05)

• Internet Hoaxes and Email Scams:

  • Jorgenson recalls viral email chain letters and Nigerian prince scams, emphasizing our repeated vulnerabilities to new misinformation vectors.

• Insight: Each new media form—whether print, film, radio, or digital—brings cycles of confusion, fear, and eventual adaptation.

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3. Defining and Understanding Media Literacy (09:37–11:08)

• Definition:
  “Media literacy, which is best defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in various forms.” (Dave Jorgenson, 09:37)

• Personal Example – The PEZ Dispenser Video:

  • A viral TikTok incorrectly showed a new way to load PEZ candy, sparking widespread belief in misinformation.
  • Jorgenson debunked the video, using it as a lighthearted entry point into more serious media literacy issues.

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4. Modern Misinformation: AI, Deepfakes, and Viral Claims (11:08–13:40)

• Case Study – Will Smith’s AI-Generated Crowd Video (11:08):

  • A video appeared to show crowds with AI-generated anomalies (e.g., “a lot of extra fingers”).
  • While the video was fake, the photos were real: “The video is fake, but the people are real.” (Dave Jorgenson, 12:20)
  • Discussion of YouTube’s image enhancement—a form of AI—blurs the lines between authentic and synthetic media.

• Insight: Even tech-savvy audiences can be misled by videos that combine real images with AI artistry.

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5. Viral Myths and Mass Panic in the Social Media Age (13:40–15:55)

• 2025 TikTok Rapture Prediction:

  • A strange rapture prophecy swept TikTok, with followers earnestly preparing for the end based on hearsay.
  • Jorgenson traced its roots to a 2018 dream by a South African YouTuber, posted much later.

  Quote:
  "Why is no one questioning where this prediction came from and why it happened?" (Dave Jorgenson, 13:59)

  • Notable comedic exchange:
    • "The actual word rapture isn't in the Bible."
    • "But I saw it on TikTok, so everything I see online is true." (14:43)

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6. The Psychology of Misinformation: Fear vs. Humor (15:55–16:56)

• Fake News Spreads Faster than Truth:
  "Fear and misinformation travel six times faster than the truth." (Dave Jorgenson, 15:55)
  Referencing studies, Dave highlights that emotional content (especially fear) fuels the viral spread of falsehoods.

• Humor as an Antidote:

  • Jorgenson argues that humor is more powerful than fear when it comes to diffusing hot takes and inviting skepticism.
  • “Because it's much easier to talk to someone when you make yourself the butt of the joke. And rather than talk down to someone, they're not necessarily going to respond to that.” (Dave Jorgenson, 16:23)

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7. Concluding Thoughts: Media Literacy for the Future (16:56–17:21)

• Hopeful Outlook:
  • We've always feared new media, but adaptation is possible—and humor helps.
  • "Ultimately we don't need to be scared of media. As long as we acknowledge that every time there's a new form of media, a new unprecedented form, we can overcome it and be a little bit less scared and have a little more fun." (Dave Jorgenson, 16:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the timelessness of media skepticism:
  "So in other words, people have always been afraid of media and how it could be manipulated." (Dave Jorgenson, 04:48)

• On the contagiousness of fear:
  "Fear and misinformation travel six times faster than the truth." (15:55)

• On the power of humor in media literacy:
  "Humor is my way into informing the masses and really kind of meeting them where they are." (16:23)

• On humanity’s adaptation to media:
  "Every time there's a new form of media, a new unprecedented form, we can overcome it and be a little bit less scared and have a little more fun." (16:56)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:37: Introduction to media through historical artifacts
• 06:43: “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast panic
• 09:37: Defining media literacy
• 11:08: The Will Smith AI video breakdown
• 13:40: TikTok rapture prophecy and mass belief
• 15:55: Why fear-driven stories spread fastest
• 16:23: Humor as a strategic tool in fighting misinformation
• 16:56: Concluding message of hope and resilience

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Summary Takeaways

• Media literacy—questioning and understanding media—is critical in an age of sophisticated misinformation.
• From ancient khipu knots to TikTok rapture predictions, history shows we've always been wary (and sometimes fooled) by new media.
• Misinformation spreads quickly, especially when it stokes fear—but humor and curiosity can help slow it, inviting people to question what they see.
• Jorgenson’s own experiences (debunking TikToks, using sketches) illustrate how lightheartedness breaks through media skepticism, fostering trust and engagement.
• Fear of new technology is part of the human condition, but learning, laughing, and adapting can keep us one step ahead.

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This TED Talk not only informs but entertains, offering both historical context and practical hope for navigating our ever-evolving media landscape.

Transcript

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[Dave Jorgensen]

I'm Dave. I've spent pretty much my entire adult life working in video journalism and media. But what is media and what forms does it take? Let me show you an example. This is quipu.

[Narrator/Producer]

Hey y'.

[Wise App Advertiser]

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[Narrator/Producer]

Elise here. So Dave is sharing an image of this khipu in English, often spelled Q U I P u, which as he said was a record keeping device. It looks almost like a half circle with long rays of string of different lengths coming down, or a large necklace. The string is colorful, different, earthy oranges, blues and yellows.

[Dave Jorgensen]

It was used by the Incas in South America. It's a system of knots and strings and every knot, the shapes, the colors, dimensions, numbers, all of it works together to tell a story. While you and I may not understand khipu or how it works, this is a form of media. And let me give you another example of media from across the pond in around 370 BC.

[Narrator/Producer]

At this point, Dave shows us a photo of a piece of papyrus scroll with tiny ancient Greek writing on it. It's hard to read and clearly very old. Imagine an ancient man you might see behind glass at a museum.

[Dave Jorgensen]

So Plato wrote this story where he was imagining a conversation with his real life teacher Socrates and a student Phaedrus. Eventually the conversation veers into a debate about speech giving and whether or not you should do it. Kind of like 10 moderators deciding whether or not I should be at this event. Spoiler alert. I'm here, so I think I'm supposed to be anyway. The conversation eventually veers into another part where Plato, as Socrates says that the written word is actually bad, that it could be misinterpreted and taken out of context. So in other words, people have always been afraid of media and how it could be manipulated. So hundreds of years later, when the first films to ever come out black and white, it's a train platform. This is a French film. So these are all French people and a French train, I presume.

[Narrator/Producer]

This film that Dave is playing is an iconic 1896 French short Silent documentary film. And I mean really short, about 50 seconds long. Directed and produced by August and Louis Lumiere. The audience sees the train hurtling towards the camera.

[Dave Jorgensen]

That train is coming really fast.

[Narrator/Producer]

To prove his point, Dave starts to react the way that early observers of the film did.

[Dave Jorgensen]

You guys see?

[Narrator/Producer]

He freaks out and ducks, literally throwing his body on the floor of the stage, only to realize that the train remained in the fully 2D space of the film and he was safe the whole time.

[Dave Jorgensen]

Oh, okay. He was coming right at us. Anyway, rumor has it that's how people reacted to it when they first saw it in theaters. They jumped out of the way. Very scary. We just weren't ready for that type of media yet. Decades later, in 1938, there was a radio broadcast that scared a lot of Americans. Here's a snippet of it.

[Orson Welles (archive audio)]

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the intercontinental radio news. 20 minutes before 8 Central Time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas. Explosions occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. Mars spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity.

[Dave Jorgensen]

Did you guys hear that's coming towards Earth. So we all know that that didn't really happen, but people listening thought it did. And it was an Orson Welles broadcast. People heard this broadcast and were literally in the streets forming mobs. There was police officers outside the CBS studios in New York, and the Nectar executives were trying to shut the broadcast down. It was a widespread issue. The CBS affiliate in Cleveland, where the host was the future Tonight show host, Jack Parr, he was there trying to convince listeners that it was a fictional story, but they didn't believe him. People were calling in and saying, no, this is happening. Like, no, this is an adaption of War of the Worlds. It's fictional. It's not real. And so every time there's a new form of media we have to adapt. You guys remember email chains? I dug this one up the other day. Don't delete. This scared the crap out of me. Once there was this is starting to sound familiar. Once there was a man giving text. Suddenly it all went to chaos. Forward this email, everyone forward it. Get out your phones forward. So obviously we figured out eventually that these emails were scams and so were the Nigerian princes that shared them. Though my Nigerian prince was real. Basically, I spent a lot of my job as a journalist trying to explain to people what they're getting wrong online versus actually talking about breaking news. Because all of this is so complicated. And there's a word for that in understanding media. It's called media literacy, which is best defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in various forms. So I kind of soft launched my career into media literacy with this viral PEZ video. I don't know if anyone saw this is back in 2021. It was someone showing you a PEZ dispenser and that you can actually load it by putting the candy in through the bottom. That is patently false. I was very angry to see this video going viral and all the comments saying, wow, I didn't know that. Well, you didn't know it because it wasn't true. And as someone who's made 5,000 journalism TikToks, I was like, I'm getting to the bottom of this. Here's the video. You may have seen a TikTok recently in which someone takes a fully wrapped stack of pest candy and puts it in the bottom of a pest dispenser and then it comes out fully unwrapped. It's fake. There's a plastic bottom here that the candy would not be able to get around. I instantly knew this because I was a super cool and totally Norma kid that collected 400 pest dispensers. But what about the other people that were also totally normal and cool kids that didn't see the obvious cut in that TikTok video in particular can be a very powerful vehicle for misinformation. And when it's something much more important than a pest dispenser, it can be really dangerous too. Here's some false claims that were made on the Internet just last week.

[Narrator/Producer]

This video ends with scrolling text of a number of claims that have been made on the Internet that are not true. For example, that COVID 19 isn't real or that Dave was really cool in high school. He ended with that one.

[Dave Jorgensen]

My editor suggested the last one. We don't. Who knows if that's true anyway? So unless you were a PEZ head like me, that story wasn't probably that important to you. But it was a Nice way into talking about media literacy, especially on TikTok, where people were taking what they saw at face value and not really challenging it. And sometimes what happens is that everything you see online, people think is true. So one example of that, more recently up to date in 2025, is this video from Will Smith's social media team. He was on a tour. Some of you, I heard some grumbles. Get ready for your minds to be blown. Because this video was a compilation of a lot of the crowds at his different concerts going through Europe. And it was pretty clearly AI generated. There's a lot of extra fingers on these people. Anyway, people were understandably pretty upset about this, and they were really upset, not just that it was AI generated, but that it appeared that Will Smith tried to generate people holding signs like this, which is obviously pretty upsetting.

[Narrator/Producer]

The picture Dave points to is of a crowd at what looks like a concert and a man holding up a sign that reads, you can make it help me survive cancer. Thanks, Will.

[Dave Jorgensen]

Will Smith is someone who is perhaps a little polarizing after his Oscar performance at the awards show. And for some people who feel a certain way about him, it was very easy to get very angry about this video. But it turns out the truth is much more complicated. This is an AI generated crowd, but it comes from real photos of the real crowds at Will Smith's concerts. So here's a more in depth look.

[Narrator/Producer]

Dave plays one of his videos here that follows the social media style where he's playing multiple characters and cutting back and forth between two of them. Dave as the teacher is seated behind the desk. And then there's Dave as two students, one in a backwards baseball hat and a sports jersey, the other one in a polo shirt.

[Dave Jorgensen]

You may have seen the videos posted on Will Smith's Instagram and YouTube account that are almost definitely AI generated. A lot of the hands have like a bajillion fingers. One sign says for a six instead of fresh. And generally speaking, people just look off. This AI is so obvious. I can't believe they thought we would fall for them. Well, these may actually be real Will Smith fans.

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[Dave Jorgensen]

No, they aren't. The video is very likely AI generated, but the photos themselves seem to actually come from people at the concert. The photo matches the video, but instead everyone looks real. So the video is fake, but the people are real.

[Wise App Advertiser]

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[Dave Jorgensen]

But the video he posted on YouTube is even more fake. Just last week, the YouTube creator liaison admitted that YouTube is using image enhancement to unblur and denoise YouTube shorts. Okay, so YouTube is using AI. He's arguing that image enhancement is not the same thing as AI because it's not a lot like the technology that most of your smartphones use when you're taking a video. Anyway, YouTube says they'll soon have a button where you can opt out. It's a good thing we have a media literacy class. Oh, this class isn't real. It's for a video. What are you even the vice president? I'm not the vice president, but I am considering shaving my beard. That comparison is happening a lot.

[Narrator/Producer]

The laughter you hear here is because Dave just put up A photo of U.S. vice President J.D. vance, who, we have to admit, Dave

[Dave Jorgensen]

looks a lot like it's been a really long year. Anyway, these people don't have enough extra fingers on their hands to count how many times we get stuff wrong on TikTok or anywhere in media. It's just really hard to keep up. And it's also hard to keep up with what's happening and where things even came from. Like a rapture prediction. Do you guys know there was a rapture in September? Oh, I guess none of us made it. So this rapture happened and people were all over TikTok.

[Narrator/Producer]

On the screen we see a quote from the New York Times article. It reads, for those who believe in the prediction, the Tiktokers had some advice. Don't make any weekend plans. Leave your phone unlocked and your passwords accessible for those who were left behind. And maybe leave your house and car unlocked. And for those who are curious, that article was published on September 25, 2025,

[Dave Jorgensen]

and they were talking about how they were going to leave food for their kids in case their kids aren't raptured, which is, I don't know, maybe it might be a parenting issue. Anyway, they're making all these TikToks and I'm watching all these and kind of secretly enjoying them a little bit, but also wondering why is no one questioning where this prediction came from and why it happened? It turns out the prediction wasn't on TikTok. It came from YouTube. It was this guy from South Africa who said that in 2018 he had a dream that a rapture was coming in September 2025. But for some reason, he waited until 2025 to post a YouTube video about it. Anyway, I had to make a more in depth video for the people, the pre raptured masses. The rapture is happening.

[Narrator/Producer]

Oh my God.

[Wise App Advertiser]

What do we do?

[Dave Jorgensen]

What do we do? I don't see anything in here about a rapture that's because the Rapture isn't in there. Okay, but I saw it on TikTok, so everything I see online is true. Okay, let's take this one chunk at a time. Fine. Hurry up. There's only a few hours left. According to this weird clock, the actual word rapture isn't in the Bible. But there is a possible reference. I knew it. In First Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 16, Paul describes the living being caught up in the clouds together with the dead. But that could mean anything, Right? And as far as today's rapture prediction goes, it just came from a YouTube video of some guy in South Africa saying that the Rapture was coming.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

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[Dave Jorgensen]

There is a date.

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[Dave Jorgensen]

And he's a pastor, right? Nope, he's just a dude who said he saw Jesus in a dream in 2018. But why today? Why this year? He said it was because of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. What? Look, rapture predictions aren't new and they often take off during uncertain times. That makes sense, Jack. For example, I don't even know if I'd be able to watch Jimmy Kimmel Tonight because ABC brought him back, but the affiliates Sinclair and Nexar have still banned him. And so there's a lot of uncertainty around that very specific example.

[Narrator/Producer]

But yeah, here at what's clearly the end of the video, Dave is mid sentence when he just disappears. He never disappeared from the stage, though, for those wondering.

[Dave Jorgensen]

Anyway. It does make sense though, that people had an emotional reaction to something like a rapture. We've always had emotional reactions to media. It's because we're afraid of it a lot of the time. And it turns out that fear and misinformation travel six times faster than the truth.

[Narrator/Producer]

Headlines pop back up on the screen from pbs, the BBC and mit. News, like fake news travels six times faster on Twitter than truthful news, and fake news travels faster, study finds.

[Dave Jorgensen]

So what emotion is more powerful than fear? I think it's humor. And humor is my way into informing the masses and really kind of meeting them where they are. Because it's much easier to talk to someone when you make yourself the butt of the joke. And rather than talk down to someone, they're not necessarily going to respond to that. And so by using humor, I've always been able to make these videos and kind of find my way into this world of misinformation and scary media. Now, if you went back in time and handed 7 year old me an iPhone, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

[Narrator/Producer]

Right.

[Dave Jorgensen]

We've always been scared of different forms of media. So my argument is that ultimately we don't need to be scared of media. As long as we acknowledge that every time there's a new form of media, a new unprecedented form, we can overcome it and be a little bit less scared and have a little more fun. Thank you.

[Narrator/Producer]

That was Dave Jorgensen speaking at Ted next 2025. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact checked by the TED Research team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little and Tansika Songmanivong. This episode was mixed by Lucy Little. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

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