Ask HN: How do you deal with lies on the internet? • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by pastacacioepepe » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

cowpig wrote: post #64

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #56

Good question. Most of the news you read about the conflict are fake at the moment. Videogames footage has been used, old footage from years ago as well. The western media even used footage of Ukraine soldiers committing crimes of war, branding them as Russian soldiers, in the general indifference. You have to understand, that as of now the western media have entered the war propaganda mode. If you want to inform you…

> I watch the Russia Today (RT) streams on YouTube. It's good to have a differing point of view. How does watching a state-controlled propaganda channel offer a "differing point of view"? Isn't the goal to be exposed to truth, as opposed to a smorgasbord of different forms of propaganda? Is it that you want want to understand what the perspective of someone who lives in Russia is going to be, acknowledging that the a…

I watch both western and eastern media because I don't trust either. By putting together information from both sides, I try to get an objective point of view.

Anyway I must say, the west has put out many more lies for what I've seen so far.

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

#72

Post by upofadown » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

>Lately I've begun to doubt every source of information that could possibly be shared because of financial, political, or misplaced altruistic motivations.

Good. Sorting out the objective truth of a situation has always been hard. The internet is not some sort of magical genie that changes this inescapable fact.

The biggest problem comes from your own biases. If people are involved you will end up with a bunch of objective truths, many at odds with one another. You have to understand these truths in superposition.

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

#73

Post by phtrivier » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

The "neo-stoic" crowd would tell you to reduce your circle of interest as closely as possible to your circle of control.

In many situation, this means realizing that you have little control most things (which is depressing), and then take the logical step of not following the news altogether.

This becomes a lot trickier when the news is in you "center of concern" (I'm trying to find the best translation for "center of emmerdement".)

For example, regarding COVID-19: you have zero effect on whether the next strain of the virus will mutate in the bloodstream of some farraway foreigner, even if they were lucky enough to get all the vaccines and treatments and everything.

Yet, when the variant will hit, you'll be hit too, and you'll get the restrictions and lockdowns, and anti-restrictions protests, and anti-vaxxers point of view, and fringe medical advice that might not end up being fringy at all, etc...

Should you care ? Should you not care ?

Also, elections. We have the luxury of letting candidates explain the same world in completely opposite terms - and we have to choose which one is less wrong. Or less lying.

In the end, I suppose the only thing in your control is to let time expose the most blatant liars, avoid trusting them too much ; and, most importantly, DO NOT LIE TOO MUCH yoursefl.

This might involves keeping eyes opened, eyebrows raised, and mouth shut. Not a very popular stance - but, hey, they're neo-stoicians, not tiktok influencers.

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

#74

Post by blablabla123 » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

I find it quite frustrating and now only read news from really established sources, no more online news from smaller or niche outlets. Since quite some time I also avoid websites that had a lot of trolling. (Like the German Heise.de) On the other hand when I see completely outrageous comments I sometimes take the time and contradict them. FWIW from all the feed-like platforms, Reddit seems to keep up quite well these days

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

#75

Post by cowpig » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

pumpkinprog wrote: post #17

Read sources with different points of view and take the average. Pretty easy with the Russia-Ukraine situation, just take 2 western or Ukrainian news sources, 2 Russian and 2 relatively unrelated (China, Africa, etc.) Same with elections (2 Dems, 2 Reps, 2-3 unrelated international). Much more difficult with COVID since nearly everybody has the same point of view, and the remaining ones are marginal. IMO, in such a s…

If your goal is to get a feel for all of the different spin/propaganda that are out there, then this maybe is a good strategy.

If your goal is to get an accurate picture of events, I think focusing on reputable news sources is a much better strategy.

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

#76

Post by pastacacioepepe » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

overthemoon wrote: post #18

I'm an American, living in the US, and for situations like Ukraine specifically, I don't believe anything right away. War is chaotic, and social media makes it more so. It costs me nothing to reserve judgement, because nothing depends on me except that I might accidentally share false info. Better to stay quiet, think, and wait. The truth may come out eventually. No one cares if I personally think it's true, but ther…

This is absolutely right. It will take time for the truth to filter out of all the fake information being spread out there. The best we can do as rational individuals is to wait for a few weeks before jumping to conclusions. This obviously doesn't mean to ignore the situation, providing help to civilians is still something that should be done right away.

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

#77

Post by dsugarman » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #56

Good question. Most of the news you read about the conflict are fake at the moment. Videogames footage has been used, old footage from years ago as well. The western media even used footage of Ukraine soldiers committing crimes of war, branding them as Russian soldiers, in the general indifference. You have to understand, that as of now the western media have entered the war propaganda mode. If you want to inform you…

I've taken a minute to read through your other comments after referring people to state run propaganda on this one, and it's a whole lot of misinformation about the war. I have my own thoughts on your account origin but either way I hope hn has some antibodies against this.

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

#78

Post by iso1631 » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

mvc wrote: post #49

jpgvm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that is the same SkyNews that we have here but if it is I would avoid it like the plague. It's effectively our version of Fox News. If you want something non-biased (from Australia that is) then ABC News or SBS World News is as close as you are going to get. Both are funded explicitly in a way that avoids biases (but also why our government has been trying to take said funding away...).

No way is SkyNews as partisan as Fox. You'd never see someone like Sam Coates for example on Fox. And he's not the only one.

Austrailian Sky News != UK Sky News

Sky, BBC (especially BBC World) and ITN (especially Channel 4) are all pretty good in the UK

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

#79

Post by iso1631 » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

I go all https://xkcd.com/386/

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

#80

Post by Ajef » Tue, Mar 01, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

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.

> It's hard because "everybody is lying" might be one of the lies.

This seems very obvious. A gereralization about everyone is almost never true. In my interpretation you're implying that people will interpret that as more than "i don't know whom to trust" with an emotional undertone, which seems odd to me. Do people accustomed to critical thought take such statements literally?

My rule of thumb is if media engages me emotionally... then I doubt it's meant to be informative. I have a distinction where I try to identify if my emotional response seems wanted by the content creator or is "my enthusiasm for the topic" or a touchy subject for me...

I don't think you can expect to take anything that comes your way by a medium directed at masses as "truth". This is something that people seem to forget in times where life generally goes well.