Brains in a Noise Storm: Why Even Smart Teams Fall for Bad Information

This is part two of a three-part VeroVeri Voice series titled The Business Toll of Misinformation, where we look at the risks & costs associated with misinformation.

Executive Takeaway

False or misleading claims don’t just circulate on social media or get picked up by the press—they also make their way into investor decks, product pages, and quarterly all-hands. Not because anyone intends to mislead, but because human cognition runs on shortcuts. Once a claim is repeated, formatted into a slide, or aligned with our goals, it tends to stick.

That’s why misinformation isn’t just an external threat—it’s a quiet internal liability. And it’s why companies serious about accuracy, alignment, and trust are embedding verification directly into their content workflows, not as a one-off fix, but as an ongoing discipline.

Why Falsehoods Linger in Executive Workflows

Misinformation doesn’t need to be malicious to be damaging. In his February 2025 article in Psychology Today, Dr. Noam Shpancer describes a striking phenomenon:

“Misinformation affects decision making even when we know it is false.”

This continued influence effect (CIE) has been confirmed across dozens of controlled studies: even when participants are explicitly told that a claim is false, they continue to rely on it when explaining outcomes or making decisions. The false information subtly embeds itself in their reasoning and doesn’t come out easily.

It’s not about gullibility. In corporate settings, this shows up in the most professional of places: a stat reused from a prior board deck, a market-size figure that keeps showing up in sales pitches, a “proof point” pulled from an old analyst report that’s no longer current. Once repeated, especially in polished formats, those elements become cognitive defaults.

The danger is compounded by the illusory truth effect. This is the finding that familiarity increases believability. We trust what we’ve seen before, even when we don’t remember whether we checked it or whether it was ever true in the first place. Studies show that even educated, attentive individuals fall victim to this bias. For companies, this creates a dangerous loop: a single unverified claim can be picked up by multiple departments, rephrased, restated, recontextualized, and embedded in slide decks, talking points, or investor materials for quarters to come.

That’s where the risk really accumulates. Misinformation doesn’t spike the moment it appears. It compounds as it circulates—internally and externally.

When teams operate under the assumption that “if it’s in the deck, it must be right,” things break down quietly. Metrics that appear in marketing, investor relations, and product materials may not align or may lack a clear source. Internally, inconsistencies can stall alignment across departments. Externally, they can trigger scrutiny, retractions, or brand damage. Even when someone catches the issue, the continued influence effect means it’s not always corrected in practice. The team may issue an update, but the old figure lingers in internal conversations, sales training, and strategic thinking.

When Verification Replaces Familiarity

To counter this, companies are adopting structural safeguards, not because they don’t trust their teams, but because they understand how human cognition actually works. The VeroVeri information audit, guided by our VALID™ Framework, is built to serve as that safeguard.

It introduces lightweight, cooperative verification steps that link each claim to its source, surface quietly outdated content, and flag internal inconsistencies. Part of the process includes a red-team challenge layer—coordinated with your team—to constructively question high-impact assertions before they reach your audience. This isn’t adversarial; it’s a collaborative checkpoint designed to improve accuracy and strengthen alignment.

When implemented regularly, the audit process becomes an internal feedback loop for quality—not just accuracy of facts, but consistency of message. It helps marketing, comms, investor relations, and legal operate from the same source map. It also creates space to question stale assumptions in a non-confrontational way. That’s where its value goes beyond risk mitigation: it helps the organization stay sharp.

Because the risk isn’t just that you’ll say something wrong—it’s that you’ll say something out of sync, and that misalignment will go unnoticed until it costs you. Sometimes in trust. Sometimes in deals. Sometimes in culture.

Modern organizations need more than intent to be trusted. They need process. They need checkpoints that account for how bias creeps in—not through bad actors, but through repetition, overload, and delegation. Left unaddressed, these dynamics aren’t neutral—they accumulate risk. But with the right structure in place, they become manageable. Even opportunities to strengthen the signal you send to the world.

What’s next

In our final post in this series, we’ll move from the cost of misinformation to the ROI of getting it right. We’ll explore how information audits support faster go-to-market, more credible public messaging, and reduced brand risk, while building long-term trust with the audiences who matter most.

Part 1: From False Facts to Real Losses: Quantifying the Business Toll of Misinformation

Part 3: Proactive Trust Economics: How Continuous Verification Transforms Credibility into Competitive Capital