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How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

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Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#11

Post by jessaustin »

pjc50 wrote: post #5

It's good to see this analysed; conspiracy theory of this kind has long been a plague on US politics and now it seems to be spreading to Europe. It takes a remarkably small number of people to put it in front of the meme-susceptible, who will then themselves spread it. (What I don't really understand is why US conspiracyism limits itself only to things that don't exist - you don't hear so much about Watergate, Iran-C…

The map is not the territory, and what gets reported is not all of what's going on. The tiny number (dozens, at least) of people who believe in goofy shit are safe to laugh at. Drawing any attention at all to "important" military-industrial complex evildoing, even if only to laugh at the people who are worried about it, is a quick way to lose all access to information and "anonymous" leaks.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#12

Post by fnovd »

pjc50 wrote: post #5

It's good to see this analysed; conspiracy theory of this kind has long been a plague on US politics and now it seems to be spreading to Europe. It takes a remarkably small number of people to put it in front of the meme-susceptible, who will then themselves spread it. (What I don't really understand is why US conspiracyism limits itself only to things that don't exist - you don't hear so much about Watergate, Iran-C…

>(What I don't really understand is why US conspiracyism limits itself only to things that don't exist - you don't hear so much about Watergate, Iran-Contra, COINTELPRO and so on.)

There's an easy answer: you can't wildly speculate when you have the facts. This is why "PizzaGate" is still being talked about. There will never be proof, because it's a ridiculous conspiracy. That leaves the conspiracy enthusiasts free to hunt for evidence and clues forever.

It's almost tautological: once we know something happened, it's no longer a conspiracy. Therefore, conspiracy enthusiasts will no longer care about it.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#13

Post by arethuza »

mathgenius wrote: post #9

I wonder if flooding the internet with obviously-fake news (eg. markov model it) is one way to immunize people against the more slick kind of fake news.

That reminds me of the mention of Artifcial Inanity systems mentioned in Anathem - which filled their equivalent of the Internet with plausible nonsense.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#14

Post by TorKlingberg »

I feel that internet discussions have turned for the worse over the last decade or so. There has always been plenty of trolls and weird conspiracy theories, but there used to be a sense that the truth wins out in the end. It was difficult to keep defending an obvious falsehood when faced with rational arguments. Some tried anyway, but they failed to convince others. Online discussions were never perfect of course, even reasonable people will often disagree about what is true.

Now, it seems like people do not care if what they write is true or not, as long as it gets repeated and upvoted enough. There is no self-correction either. When something like pizzagate turns out to be complete nonsense, they people who spread it are not discouraged from doing the same thing again. In their eyes it was a very successful social media campaign.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#15

Post by 1_2__3 »

jessaustin wrote: post #6
dibujante wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the majority of Trump (and Farage, and Petry, and so forth) voters similarly uninterested in actual facts? Not just uninterested, but actively conspiratorial. It's hard to talk with a Trump voter when it veers into territory like "world leaders are withholding a cure for cancer" and "the Pope has a secret base in Antarctica."

"The Russians phished some Hillary staffers, and that's why she was so unpopular with voters!"

"world leaders have a cure for cancer": Made up nonsense.

"Russian hacking": Allegation supported by multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#16

Post by acomjean »

dibujante wrote: post #4
geofft wrote: post #2

This is interesting as a work of network analysis, but I'm not sure how to connect this back to politics. It seems pretty clear to me whenever I browse /r/The_Donald that they're actively uninterested in fact-checking. There are posts hating on the new Netflix TV series "Dear White People" where people ask questions like "Do I even want to know what it's about?". There was a highly-upvoted image about Pizzagate with…

> Are the majority of Trump (and Farage, and Petry, and so forth) voters similarly uninterested in actual facts? Not just uninterested, but actively conspiratorial. It's hard to talk with a Trump voter when it veers into territory like "world leaders are withholding a cure for cancer" and "the Pope has a secret base in Antarctica."

There was a good opinion piece by a conservative radio host: "Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying"

"For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled."[1]

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/opinion/sunday/why-nobody...

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#17

Post by ticviking »

jessaustin wrote: post #6
dibujante wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the majority of Trump (and Farage, and Petry, and so forth) voters similarly uninterested in actual facts? Not just uninterested, but actively conspiratorial. It's hard to talk with a Trump voter when it veers into territory like "world leaders are withholding a cure for cancer" and "the Pope has a secret base in Antarctica."

"The Russians phished some Hillary staffers, and that's why she was so unpopular with voters!"

Yes both sides have their conspiracy theories. The issue is is that the scale of conspiracies imagined by the left just doesn't compare to what is imagined on the right. Imagining that "a group largely ruled by the same people we have been playing spy-games with for a century might be playing spy-games with us" is distinctly different from, "A large part of the US ruling class is part of a satanic cult with food based code to cover up massive child abuse." These differences include both the scope of the claims, and the number of imagined conspirators required to keep the claims a secret.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#18

Post by jbmorgado »

mathgenius wrote: post #9

I wonder if flooding the internet with obviously-fake news (eg. markov model it) is one way to immunize people against the more slick kind of fake news.

It's also a sure way to inoculate them against every news in general... which wouldn't be a very positive outcome.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#19

Post by ticviking »

1_2__3 wrote: post #15
jessaustin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Russians phished some Hillary staffers, and that's why she was so unpopular with voters!"

"world leaders have a cure for cancer": Made up nonsense. "Russian hacking": Allegation supported by multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

You are missing a key point of what makes a conspiracy theory different from a normal lie. The theory has just enough evidence to pull some fraction of vulnerable non-believers into examining it.

From there social pressure, motivated reasoning, and the usual garden of cognitive biases lead people to believe there is more evidence than there actually is.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#20

Post by _ph_ »

kr7 wrote: post #10

> ...so that she could unleash an “EU Army” against fellow EU member states. The article puts “EU Army” in scare quotes, but that part is actually true; Merkel does support the creation of an EU Army: > "Mrs Merkel is backing a push by Mr Juncker to create an EU army." [1] [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11861247...

The most convincing lies are based on some truth, then interpreted in a completely wrong fashion. Yes, Angela Merkel, and other European heads of state are pushing for an European Army. That is, an army to defend Europe against aggression from the outside, and have even less national armies who could potentially fight against each other inside Europe. So the idea is to have less dangers of "unleashing" any forces against fellow EU member states.
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