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How Lies Spread Online

nytimes.com

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Re: How Lies Spread Online

#61

Post by jacobsenscott »

bumholio wrote: post #14
sien wrote: post #6

You hire Judith Miller to write about WMDs. Then get 'quality' news to publish it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller The cost of the NYT's 'disinformation' about Iraq was a war that cost hundreds of billions and thousands of lives.

It's quite unfair to compare misinformation campaigns orchestrated by the whole US government and it's intelligence agencies, as was the case with Iraq's WMDs, to online propaganda organized by private individuals to the benefit of various political candidates or their own online circulation. What happened with Iraq was not just fake news, it was fake governing, it was another order of magnitude. Miller and the NYT w…

Nobody with any capacity for critical thought ever believed there were WMDs in Iraq. The government's disinformation campaign was not sophisticated at all. It wasn't the whole government -it was pretty much just Cheney, Bush, and Rice. The NYT reporters weren't useful idiots - they new exactly what they were doing. Selling papers. They pretty much admitted it later https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-th...

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#62

Post by wu-ikkyu »

curtis wrote: post #37
sien wrote: post #6

You hire Judith Miller to write about WMDs. Then get 'quality' news to publish it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller The cost of the NYT's 'disinformation' about Iraq was a war that cost hundreds of billions and thousands of lives.

> The cost of the NYT's 'disinformation' about Iraq was a war that cost hundreds of billions and thousands of lives. Are you saying that had the NYT reported things differently the Iraq war wouldn't have happened? That seems unreasonably strong because it implies that the New York Times had a greater responsibility for the war than did the president and congress.

Perhaps if the entire mainstream media had reported things differently (instead of seemingly all of them being blindly in favor of it), then yes, maybe it wouldn't have happened. That is assuming of course that the US government actually cares what the public thinks when powerful government officials want war.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#63

Post by fouc »

iamleppert wrote: post #57

This pretty much quantifies one of my core beliefs about human behavior: people are dishonest by nature. The reward mechanisms for our world are clearly optimized for dishonesty and deception. This isn’t to make some kind of statement about our culture, rather it’s an observation about reality. Dishonesty and falsity are everywhere, and you even find it in nature and animals. I don’t think it has anything to do with…

Things are probably more nuanced than that. People are also honest by nature.

Telling the truth has way less cognitive load, and people generally aren't going to be stupid enough to get stuck in weaving an elaborate net of lies just to support that one original lie that they refuse to come clean on.

But there's also certain levels of dishonesty or lies by omission etc that people will do at a social level. Sometimes it's even beneficial for greater harmony between people.

I bet game theorists have studied this type of stuff quite a bit.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#64

Post by wu-ikkyu »

ajross wrote: post #46
growlist wrote: post #43

In my observation these fact checking organisations usually fall down on the left's side of things, so either it's predominantly the right that lies, or the fact checkers conveniently ignore controversies that are open and shut bad behaviour on the left, or my perception is incorrect. Though I have to say the whole concept of a single self-appointed authoritative source troubles me, what with its Ministry of Truth ov…

> the fact checkers conveniently ignore controversies that are open and shut bad behaviour on the left Could be true, I guess. Everyone has "perspective" about what is important. That still doesn't seem to be a reason to disbelieve a fact checker when they tell you that, say, POTUS is lying, though. > Though I have to say the whole concept of a single self-appointed authoritative source troubles me, what with its Min…

>Could be true, I guess. Everyone has "perspective" about what is important. That still doesn't seem to be a reason to disbelieve a fact checker

It gives reason to doubt based on a known political bias.

>How exactly does that have overtones of centrally enforced authority?

Because it implies one is unable to determine truths and falsehoods for themselves

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#65

Post by mirimir »

Avshalom wrote: post #49
influx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's treasonous not to trust the 17 intelligence agencies.

whether I am addressing this to you or the audience: it has come out in the years since that in fact the US intelligence community agreed there was no credible threat of WMDs in Iraq, but they mostly kept their mouth shut when the Bush administration claimed otherwise.

That's also my impression. I followed that closely.

It's also my impression that the US intelligence community tried to warn the Bush administration about the 9/11 attackers, but that Condoleezza Rice blew them off.[0]

0) https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-director...

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#66

Post by creaghpatr »

function_seven wrote: post #56
slg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of this article and post presents a question. The first comment in this thread appears to be answering that question by blaming it on the NYT.

Right. By blindly parroting the government's line. By failing to do due diligence, or be skeptical of the sources, etc. Those are all different things than lying. They're lapses in professional care, or shortcomings in ability. Straight up lying could also be involved, sure. But lying isn't necessary for blame to be assigned.

I would go so far to say they willingly participated by trading away scrutiny for access.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#67

Post by glenstein »

bumholio wrote: post #14
sien wrote: post #6

You hire Judith Miller to write about WMDs. Then get 'quality' news to publish it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller The cost of the NYT's 'disinformation' about Iraq was a war that cost hundreds of billions and thousands of lives.

It's quite unfair to compare misinformation campaigns orchestrated by the whole US government and it's intelligence agencies, as was the case with Iraq's WMDs, to online propaganda organized by private individuals to the benefit of various political candidates or their own online circulation. What happened with Iraq was not just fake news, it was fake governing, it was another order of magnitude. Miller and the NYT w…

>It's quite unfair to compare misinformation campaigns orchestrated by the whole US government and it's intelligence agencies

I think you're both right and wrong. Wrong because there are still interesting questions about how falsehoods propagate over networks in the case of Iraq and WMD. But right in the sense that there's an underlying structural difference how and why the falsehoods are being generated in one case vs the other.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#68

Post by jcl »

js2 wrote: post #5

> Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect… Jonathan Swift (1710) https://quoteinves…

Thanks for the quoteinvestigator link... I was likewise reminded of Terry Pratchett's version, also mentioned there:

"A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on."

It's quite amazing that the researchers essentially quantified those idioms. And it's also somewhat surprising that none of the idioms found their way into the article. :)

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#69

Post by eksu »

slg wrote: post #38
function_seven wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in this thread suggested that the journalists were lying, just that they were terrible at their jobs. They repeated the official line, without questioning the source.

The title of this article and post presents a question. The first comment in this thread appears to be answering that question by blaming it on the NYT.

Saying the NYTimes spread lies (answering the question in the post title) in a context WMD's or other contexts is not the same thing as saying the NYTimes or journalists were/are lying (with intent).

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#70

Post by lobotryas »

bumholio wrote: post #14
sien wrote: post #6

You hire Judith Miller to write about WMDs. Then get 'quality' news to publish it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller The cost of the NYT's 'disinformation' about Iraq was a war that cost hundreds of billions and thousands of lives.

It's quite unfair to compare misinformation campaigns orchestrated by the whole US government and it's intelligence agencies, as was the case with Iraq's WMDs, to online propaganda organized by private individuals to the benefit of various political candidates or their own online circulation. What happened with Iraq was not just fake news, it was fake governing, it was another order of magnitude. Miller and the NYT w…

It feels like you're implying that NYT should be absolved of this. Make no mistake - no one held a gun to their head and made them print those stories.
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