Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 126 posts

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

#81

Post by cowpig »

For current events, my strategy is largely to stick to Associated Press (AP) reports. I ignore anything that's not super reputable, and don't have social media accounts.

My understanding is that, for many years now, the AP has been an organization for journalists to publish news in a neutral-enough way that it could be republished by other outlets with whatever context/framing/spin it wants.

A lot of the time, when you read a news story in politically-motivated new source, they're just taking AP stories and then adapting them to a narrative that better fits their audience.

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

#82

Post by dunkelheit »

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 works only to a degree. Reserving judgment can't entirely stop emotional reaction which is the target of many of these info nuggets. Also, it can be really hard to notice that you are in an echo chamber, when e.g. you see a highly liked tweet claiming X, then some reputable newspaper reports X, then someone you personally know and respect says "have you heard that X", and X is also generally consistent with your worldview, it is very hard to reserve judgment.

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

#83

Post by dunkelheit »

> “Most of the information on this topic is crap.” “What do you mean by that?” Crade demanded. We all looked at him, because in an instant he had become markedly defensive. Sammann raised his eyes from the screen of the jeejah and gazed interestedly at Crade. He let a few moments go by, then responded in a calm and matter-of-fact tone: “Anyone can post information on any topic. The vast majority of what’s on the Reticulum is, therefore, crap. It has to be filtered. The filtering systems are ancient. My people have been improving them, and their interfaces, since the time of the Reconstitution.

We haven't yet reached this degree of sophistication.

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

#84

Post by robertlagrant »

dfxm12 wrote: post #68

Lately I've begun to doubt every source of information that could possibly be shared because of financial, political, or misplaced altruistic motivations. So I've been ignoring as much as possible. This is what the people sewing misinformation in the first place want. You can act their pawn and ignore the world around you, leading to making underinformed choices at the polls, at the newsstand or wherever, or you can…

> Also, keep in mind, humans write these stories. Getting one thing wrong here or there is not an indictment of that writer or their publication, if it's handled properly by printing a correct or retraction.

This is the normal feeling I think we've had for decades. The recent ten years or so has felt much more as though:

- certain news stories are just not reported if they are going to send the wrong message. E.g. reporting on the BLM organisation (on both sides)

- certain news stories are just built out of nowhere and even if technically retracted, are not retracted with the same force as they were generated. E.g. Covington kid reality on the left, Covid facts on the right

Perhaps it was always this way, but that's how it seems to me.

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

#85

Post by pastacacioepepe »

dsugarman wrote: post #77
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.

My account is 5 years old and I'm Italian. I have no interest in supporting any particular side, only for the truth to come out.

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

#86

Post by cowpig »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #71
cowpig wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Just think about that from a logical perspective: if you start your proof with false axioms, you can never produce anything true. You can only produce a universe of internally-consistent false statements.

The only way out of the propaganda trap is to find organizations that legitimately care about good journalism. They definitely exist!

One place to start might be Wikipedia, the culture there is very much "organize knowledge" as opposed to "achieve some political end".

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

#87

Post by dunkelheit »

kirso wrote: post #45
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of social media usefulness, but unrelated, but I found it strange/funny/sad/depressing, I signed up last night on Twitter and one of the posts about Ukraine at the top was like "Like for Zelensky, RT for Putin, who do you prefer" With some thousands interactions Does humanity really need social media? Why politicians keep posting their communications there, why they feel they need to expose citizens to such…

Twitter is also a source of claims that civilian objects are out of bounds for the conflict. Well it proved to be an evidence of not being the case. RT / Like is a blatant manipulation and Twitter should ban it.

> Twitter is also a source of claims that civilian objects are out of bounds for the conflict. Well it proved to be an evidence of not being the case.

This claim could be true, but outdated.

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

#89

Post by thenerdhead »

I think about "The Noble Lie".

Is it okay to tell lies in order to maintain social harmony or advance an agenda? Your leaders do it. Your bosses do it. Social media does it. And if you're a parent, you probably do it.

Personally, I try to avoid the news, social media, and do everything within my control to create a "low information diet" where the only inputs are high quality and carefully curated. I value thought-out content. That means it takes many months or years to put together, not 240 characters of a hot take from something seen online.

Being a veteran of the internet, I don't trust any mainstream sources. Seeing first-hand how fast certain popular content can be censored, I no longer value any aggregate sites as of like 2012. Also they are scary in terms of groupthink.

Where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise.

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

#90

Post by kortex »

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…

The mean is a statistical measure which is very sensitive to outliers. Your weighting function should be more like an M-estimator.

The more extreme the source, the less weight it gets.

Also it means little to combine multiple sources of similar persuasion. Both Russia and China saying something is not worth 2x, since they are correlated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-estimator

Post reply on HN