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Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#21

Post by rambambram »

Usually I start hating everybody, start a temper tantrum in my room, then my house, then the streets. Everybody in sight needs to know there's somebody wrong - on purpose! - on the internet. My anger convinces everybody immediately, usually. My blood pressure rises, just as my voice. I feel my heart pumping, just as my inevitable headache. But it's all worth it. /s

On a more serious note: just (try to) ignore that sh1t. Every minute spent thinking/feeling about someone else's agenda is a minute not spent on life. Seriously, the magpies in the trees in front of my house are more interesting than any news channel, politician, youtuber, or whatever.

Search for 'no contact' or 'grey rock' with your favorite search engine. I think it can help a lot of people in a lot of situations, just as it helped me. Pro tip: it's not only applicable to the situations it was intended for.

Have a good day y'all! I'm going to watch some magpies.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#22

Post by thinkingemote »

When there's a lot of lies around and it feels like you are under attack, truth itself becomes something good and valuable. Indeed, what's good is what is true! Lies are false and not good.

And so, I worship God with prayer. goodness and truth is being worshiped by doing so, literally.

It at the very least helps reorganise what's important in life.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#23

Post by datavirtue »

spamizbad wrote: post #10

Counter-intuitive but… You stop consuming it. You actually do not need to be informed on every topic at every moment. There are people who do this professionally - it’s a full time job and even they get misinformed. You cannot voraciously consume this stuff while also being immune to propaganda. You’re actually more vulnerable to it the more you consume. Ignorance in this case can actually work in your favor.

A good example of this is how Putin floated a statement that was meant to seem a threat toward nuclear war. He did that to distract everyone from talking about how he was losing the war. It worked perfectly.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#24

Post by willis936 »

analog31 wrote: post #20

It's hard because "everybody is lying" might be one of the lies. My approach is slow thinking. I really don't have to form an opinion quickly on most things. If ever. I read for enjoyment. Something makes it hard to write propaganda that's actually interesting and enjoyable to read. I've shut down the "engagement" media, even if I agree with them.

Jon Stewart's The Problem podcast spent two episodes talking about misinformation recently. Jon's views are informed by him being an outsider during the Iraq War in saying that the war was unjustified early on. He used this to justify that the mainstream media shouldn't always be trusted to tell the truth.

He then goes on to say that engagement is key, but I don't buy that at all. Engagement is what is being maximized by lies. The money men are already in control of the information flows and it makes money to spread misinformation. You can clutch the 1st amendment forever, but the world has changed around it and we need new thinking if we want to pull up from dystopia.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#25

Post by Freak_NL »

Subscribe or visit a quality newspaper, and limit your intake of news to (mostly) that. For international news and high-profile issues like the current war, British newspaper The Guardian is accessible (no paywall) and good. It has a moderate progressive/liberal bias and in general has a solid track record of being factual as well as participating in investigative journalism.

American readers here may be able to suggest suitable US newspapers.

Yes, weighing various sources for a contentious issue is a good thing, but you can't do that for everything. And drinking bits of news from the fire-hose of social media means you have to weigh every nuance and distrust every sender. Good journalism does this for you; just be aware of where any medium stands and what its reputation is (i.e., don't expect the Daily Mail to provide you with a solid analysis of Putin's war).

Being Dutch, I am a subscriber to a Dutch newspaper (NRC; the other quality national newspaper is De Volkskrant) on paper in the weekends and digitally the rest of the week, and supplement this with a yearly contribution for The Guardian, which I visit for a non-Dutch view of certain topics (I found this valuable for the topic of Brexit).

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#26

Post by krapp »

datavirtue wrote: post #23
spamizbad wrote: post #10

Counter-intuitive but… You stop consuming it. You actually do not need to be informed on every topic at every moment. There are people who do this professionally - it’s a full time job and even they get misinformed. You cannot voraciously consume this stuff while also being immune to propaganda. You’re actually more vulnerable to it the more you consume. Ignorance in this case can actually work in your favor.

A good example of this is how Putin floated a statement that was meant to seem a threat toward nuclear war. He did that to distract everyone from talking about how he was losing the war. It worked perfectly.

> He did that to distract everyone from talking about how he was losing the war. It worked perfectly.

Did it? Or did people just talk about both?

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#27

Post by D13Fd »

Personally I think old-school independent news media is still the best source of information, although it's best to look at both right- and left-leaning sources to get a good sense of what's real.

And it's best not to read the comment section. To the extent commenters are human at all, they may be paid influencers. And if they are not, people's natural tendency is to repeat the most viral information, which is often incorrect or things that cause outrage in favor of some ideological viewpoint.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#28

Post by kemiller2002 »

About 20 years ago I listened to a photographer talk about his photos of a community hospital. Someone asked him why did he chose this as the work he wanted to pursue. He said (paraphrasing), "When I really want to find out about something, I go study it. I don't listen to the news or read someone's opinion. I really wanted to see what healthcare in America was like, so I convinced a hospital to let me photograph their daily activities for use in their marketing." I try to follow that advice. I largely don't pay attention to the internet, or the news. I skim current events, but beyond that I largely don't deal with it. If I want to learn something, I spend the time to go find out for myself.

I haven't heard this phrase for a while. I learned Scooby-Doo and my dad explained what it meant to me when I was like 5. "Only believe half of what you read and nothing that you see." We've been fabricating news since the beginning of time. It's just more apparent now. The internet didn't start it. It just made it more apparent since more people are in the propaganda game now.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#29

Post by azangru »

Ignoring what I am not interested in; pretty open to various opinions on what I am interested in, especially if I haven't yet formed my own opinion. Trusting that either I can spot the lies myself or, if not, at least they will challenge my sensemaking apparatus, revealing to me what I do not know or what the weak points in my knowledge are.

Don't know how to properly deal with information that requires my immediate action though (buy a product / not buy a product; invest in bitcoins / not invest in bitcoins; get a vaccine / not get a vaccine, etc.).

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet?

#30

Post by BatteryMountain »

Treat the entire internet as a theater designed to capture your attention, to make you think and feel a specific way and in turn to influence your decisions. Do not trust anything coming towards you. If a source is invisible unknown, discard it. If you do not know the person(s)/entities sending information to your mind, how can you possibly trust/know what their intentions are? So yeah, guard your mind well. It is best to only visit the internet a few times a month and even then, treat it all as if it is made up and tailored to control you.
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