A Moment of Pause: Navigating Misinformation in Immigrant Communities

In this episode, Emma Yaaka, a Ugandan refugee and community advocate, shares how misinformation spreads through refugee and migrant networks and the real consequences it can have. From WhatsApp groups to TikTok and YouTube, fear can travel fast, shaping decisions about health, safety, and even relocation. Emma works with his community to pause, verify, and navigate information in an environment where trust is fragile, and stakes are high. Experts Dr. Zach McDowell of UIC and Dr. Michael Spikes of NU-Medill explain why distinguishing misinformation from disinformation matters — and why trusted connections can make all the difference. Hosted by Grace Asiegbu, this episode explores how digital information, fear, and community intersect in the lives of refugees.

Produced by Grace Asiegbu @epitome_of_grace for Reparations Media NFP | In collaboration with Emma Yaaka and U.S. Refugee Integration Organization

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

A lot of fear actually in our communities. It starts with online information.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Emma Yako works closely with refugee and migrant communities, and he sees how quickly information can take hold.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

It's YouTube. We have TikTok. Everyone is creating content. We have WhatsApp groups. I have 50 of them. Different WhatsApp groups with migrants and refugees. And one group has almost 250 individuals in it. And the information runs very fast through those platforms.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

As a Ugandan refugee himself, Emma knows how rapidly information can move online, and he's seen how wrong information spreads just as fast, fueling fear during moments that are already tense and uncertain. As digital tools become more sophisticated, from manipulated videos to algorithm-driven content designed to provoke reactions, separating what's real from what's not has become even harder, and the stakes are higher than ever. For refugees and migrants, misinformation can cost them their health, livelihood, or even legal status. I'm Grace Isabu with Change Agents, the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Anytime they may arrest you or they will deport you. She went home. She forced the doctors to discharge her because of the fear. It took for her more time to heal. Because there was no better care for her at home.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Emma says this example is just one of dozens like it he's seen or heard as refugees try to navigate the dizzying journey of resettlement during a time of rising political tensions.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

Two immigrants and two refugees that I've been working with, they made a decision to move out of this state.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Stories like these show how false information can shape decisions in real time. For many refugees, information comes from familiar places, media in their home countries, other immigrants, and people who speak their language. Accurate or not, these sources carry weight because they feel familiar and they're trusted. That's why it's important to distinguish between two core types of false information, misinformation and disinformation. Dr. Zach McDowell, professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explained that while inaccurate information is harmful, not all misinformation is created equal.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Misinformation is when it's not necessarily accurate, but wasn't really intended. Let's say it's in good faith, but it's wrong. Disinformation is intended to obfuscate the truth. It is intended to lie, it's intended to distort.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

According to McDowell, that distinction is critical, but even misinformation, often spread in good faith, can cause real harm, as in the case of Emma's client in the hospital. The nurse wasn't trying to mislead anyone, but she was an authority figure speaking to someone whose immigration status already made every decision feel high stakes. The nurse, like the client and many others, was operating inside that same climate of fear.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Even if they end up, and of course they have deported many people and very wrongly, but even if they ended up doing almost nothing in the end other than detaining a few people, the point is to instill fear. When you're afraid and unsure, that's adding multiple extra layers of stress. And when people are stressed out, they don't act always rationally. Maybe they don't have trusted sources yet. Maybe they haven't established those communities. But it makes it even harder to do that. And that's the big problem right now is that trust is is eroding. The uh people are afraid, and it's making it even harder to try to know what is the truth.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

If everyone's getting their information online, why is trust eroding? Emma says part of the answer is the cult of virality.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

But the time truth comes, the information has already had to be broken. And this trust that we build in people takes years, but it gets broken within a minute because of just misinformation that is being circulated on social media platforms.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

What Emma is describing goes beyond social media. It's a breakdown in the media ecosystem. To understand why, I spoke with Dr. Michael Spikes, a misinformation expert at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, and director of its Teach for Chicago journalism program. He says the blurt lines between reported news, commentary, and opinion have all but disappeared as people spend more and more time online and reported media outlets continue to vanish.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Because of the amount of time that people spend on these platforms and also the amount of time that it has taken people to develop these particular habits of finding trust in that kind of information, I would say that line is gone.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

When fear replaces trust, the brain looks for certainty, not accuracy.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

What it really comes down to is when people are fearful or made to fear something, their own skepticism or their own sort of capabilities for verifying or evaluating information already get broken down because we're in a sort of fight or flight mode. So we move more towards information that seems more certain. And in certain cases, we'll use sort of cues, such as like the forcefulness of that information as a cue to tell us it must be much more certain, without us being able to detect or be able to evaluate if that information is backed up by evidence or if we have something in front of us that will tell us that something is happening.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Trusted messengers, like Emma, do their part to educate and verify, but in a media ecosystem that rewards volume and speed over accuracy, misinformation becomes especially dangerous for refugees and migrants. For Emma, part of his work is fielding this uncertainty from his clients and community.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

The more they receive the information, the more they send it to me because they are those who trust me. They say, hey, look at this. What's happening? Are we safe? Are we going to be okay here?

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Confronted with these questions, Emma's role isn't to have all the answers. It's to help fellow refugees pause just long enough to ask more questions themselves. That pause is a key part of media literacy.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Media literacy, education, you can call it lots of other things, digital literacy, all these kinds of things, which is where you start to sort of cut through those particular um cues. You know how to identify them and be able to like build more skepticism around claims that you might hear that might come from very uh from people who you recognize, come from people you are familiar with, but also know that you may have to take what they say with a grain of salt because they may not have the expertise to know what it is they are, you know, giving you information on.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Both experts agree, even with all the training in the world, the biggest impact comes from the people around us, our friends and community members we trust to help us navigate information we can't always verify ourselves. Here's Zach McDowell with the University of Illinois at Chicago.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

You might not get invited to the party by the person who is throwing the party, but their friend invites you and says you're a trusted person, and this is a person you can trust. And that's why you now have a physical connection through that person, right? This is what we need to get back to. Small community.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

And small community can be pretty big too. Even in trusted networks, recognizing misinformation cues helps people make safer choices.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

If it looks too good to be true, if it fits your mold too well, it's probably designed that way.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

That idea, slowing down and questioning what fits too neatly, isn't theoretical. It's the work Emma does every day. Each WhatsApp message he checks helps his community pause before fear makes a decision for them. One DM at a time.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Change Agents is produced by Reparations Media. The music is composed by Sarah Abdullah. Funding support is provided by the Chicago Community Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, the Wayfarer Foundation, and the Lumpkin Family Foundation. Subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever you find podcasts. And follow ChangeAgents on Facebook, Instagram, and our website, ChangeAgentsThe Podcast.com.