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

So applying your method leaves us with: a conflict (but not really a war) where Russia is not quite invading a not quite country to protect Russians and get rid of Zelenski, who is a bit of a Nazi?

There may be nuances and opinions, but the facts presented by non Russian/Chinese media seem rather uncontested.

Precisely that is the result that the masterminds behind the "firehose of lies" and the propaganda want. Distrust in media, distrust in government makes it easier for the enemy (no matter if it is Russia, China or domestic) to act. And the fact that way too many people do not have the adequate time (because they have to work two jobs or way beyond reasonable overtime) or the skills (more than half the US are barely literate [1]) to properly judge news on their authenticity makes things only worse.

The word democracy has demos at its core: the populace that forms the society. And the less people trust democratic processes like elections or an independent and fair justice system and the more people withdraw from taking part in democratic society as a result of all of that, the worse the eventual outcome is. The best condition for authoritarian rulers to rise is when the majority of people doesn't care or doesn't recognize the looming danger.

[1]: https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/08/whats-the-latest-u-s-liter...

Then I try to use my brain to think what the article is saying. I see the claims the article makes, and ask questions to verify and counter those claims. Just to give a hypothetical example:

"New vaccine developed for Covid-19 promising 100% effectiveness! Will we finally be living without Covid-19?"

I'll go like:

- Hmm, a bit clickbaity title. Should have some asterisk marks attached to it.

- The 100% effectiveness claim. Is it based on a research paper?

- If yes, is it peer-reviewed?

- If it is peer-reviewed, where is it published? Is it a source that has high reputation for being trustable?

- If yes, did they do randomized control trials?

- If yes, what's the sample size? Is it large enough to be credible?

And so on.

From here, the content actually might go beyond my level of expertise and knowledge (I am not a virologist, so I am not technically qualified to verify the claims or smell a rat if there is one), but much of the time, many claims will fail to live up to these simple questions that are very basic. The more "no"s I get from these questions, the lower it gets on my credibility list, and if it drops beyond a certain point, I conclude it's fake and move on. If it stays high up there multiple times, I tend to believe it to be "possibly true".

Note that I don't assign anything as "facts" that easily.

The thing I keep in mind is this: there is zero point in "keeping up-to-date" with news unless I am willing to analyze the content to the best of my abilities and draw conclusions from them. If anything, just gobbling up whatever news comes out is harmful to mental health. I don't want to be turned into an "information zombie" who doesn't ask questions.

Also, it's completely fine NOT to try to read every news. Like, I don't know anything about American football (sorry!) so analyzing tier lists for teams is something highly interesting for many, but is not something I'd prefer to give time to.

And now is, in my opinion, a great time to do this analysis. The world is in chaos, and these times brings out the worst in people. So now we get to see things that we wouldn't see in the best of times, and who knows, maybe the data we internalize on how people react might come handy at some point in the future. :)