Furthermore, the platform architecture enables the "silo effect." On Twitter or Facebook, a disinformation claim is immediately met with quote-tweets, community notes, and angry rebuttals. It exists in a public square. A podcast, however, lives in a bubble. A listener downloading an episode of a conspiratorial podcast is rarely interrupted by a fact-check. They listen while driving, jogging, or doing dishes—states of heightened suggestibility and lowered critical defense. The podcaster has the listener’s undivided attention for 120 minutes. No television ad break or newspaper column has that kind of captive audience.
No discussion of disinformation in audio is complete without addressing the unkillable beast: WhatsApp voice notes. In Brazil alone, over 120 million people use WhatsApp. A forwarded voice note from "a nurse who works at the central hospital" carries more weight than a government press release. desinformacao podcast