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How Lies Spread Online

nytimes.com

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Re: How Lies Spread Online

#71

Post by lobotryas »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #23
influx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can't tell if you're just using sarcasm here, but there's nothing "treasonous" about not trusting intelligence agencies that throughout history have not been very trustworthy. You should also stop using "treason" incorrectly. Here [1] is a great debate between Glenn Greenwald and James Risen where Glenn breaks down how important it is to not use Treason in an incorrect manner, and explains (sourced) exactly what Tr…

It's nice to see someone say that when a person would be hounded to no end online if they showed any skepticism of intelligence agencies' assertions that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#72

Post by kryogen1c »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

This was from March but it is a good question. It prompted me to do some spot checks on Facebook virality and Twitter virality as well. One of the things that stands out in false stories is that because they are false they stay "on message" in their falseness. This contrasts with stories that are more truthful which tend to include questions and unknowns that might later contradict or modify the story. So for an exam…

> One of the things that stands out in false stories is that because they are false they stay "on message" in their falseness. This contrasts with stories that are more truthful which tend to include questions and unknowns that might later contradict or modify the story.

This is the main barometer that I use to see if I live in an echo chamber or not and orient myself in the world. The people I listen to (Rogan, Peterson, Weinsteins, Rubin, and to a lesser extent Shapiro and Harris) tend not to speak authoritatively except in narrow circumstances and their opponents (and people I disagree with) tend to speak as if their opinions are self-evidently correct and disagreement is out of the question.

Unrelatedly, another tool is to examine my mentors' critic's arguments. It is very telling that Jordan Peterson is equally accused of being far left and far right.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#73

Post by Veelox »

dragonwriter wrote: post #40
Veelox wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have reason to believe that the government knew there were no WMDs?

> Do we have reason to believe that the government knew there were no WMDs? Yes; many of the specific bases of support they pointed to had been debunked before they were publicized by, among others, UN weapons inspectors. While it's far from proof , that alone is reason to believe that they were knowingly fabricating their claims.

Would you be able to link to a source about the UN weapons inspectors or something similar? All I have is pretty much hearsay and I was young enough when the towers fell that I understood "bad guys did it" but not much more.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#74

Post by monocasa »

mirimir wrote: post #65
Avshalom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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.

Nah, the official report from the CIA was FOIAed. IMO this meme that the CIA saw it all right is just Washington internal politics leaking out.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/259216899/Iraq-October-2002-NIE-o...

Page 13

> High Confidence

> * Iraq is continuing, and in some cases expanding, its biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

The report also spends a long time parroting that yellowcake BS too.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#75

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#76

Post by cam_l »

slg wrote: post #26
munk-a wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the backlash we're seeing against mainstream media these days are, I believe, in a large part driven by those reporters that failed to do their due diligence when it came to Iraq. Reporters should expect to be told lies often, when those lies are blindly printed and distributed it does a lot of damage to society's trust. I think with Iraq it went beyond negligence, but likely not at all levels, preferring to hir…

The definition of lying generally involves intent. Do you think these journalists generally are intending to mislead with statements they know are untrue in the same way the producers of fake news do?

I tend to think intent is an outmoded system of morality. It can be faked easily, even to oneself.

It is always better to judge outcomes. Actions, not words..

Lying, then, should be judged not on level of intent, but on severity. And on this metric, all those reporters involved should feel, and be judged, personally responsible for the deaths in the iraq war and aftermath.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#77

Post by js2 »

jcl wrote: post #68
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. :)

Indeed, I went looking for the version I was familiar with ("A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.") in order to correctly attribute it, whereupon I discovered the source of that version is unknown, so I quoted the Swift version since I it's centuries older, sourced, and I liked it best after reading them all.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#78

Post by BeetleB »

davidzweig wrote: post #8
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.

"Credible estimates of Iraq War casualties range from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 (per the Iraq Family Health Survey) to 461,000 total deaths as of June 2011 (per PLOS Medicine 2013), over 60% of them violent." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

"Other disputed estimates, such as the 2006 Lancet study and the 2007 Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey—which likely overestimate mortality—put the numbers as high as 655,000 total deaths as of June 2006 (over 90% of them violent) and 1.2 million violent deaths as of August 2007 respectively. Meanwhile, body counts—which likely underestimate mortality—put the numbers as low as 110,000 violent deaths as of April 2009"

The Wikipedia summary needs editing. The paragraph has a lot of weasel words. Who decides what is credible? Who decides what is likely an underestimate? And AFAIK, all the estimates are disputed - yet someone will get the impression that the Lancet ones are the disputed ones and not the PLOS one.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#79

Post by BeetleB »

kryogen1c wrote: post #72
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

This was from March but it is a good question. It prompted me to do some spot checks on Facebook virality and Twitter virality as well. One of the things that stands out in false stories is that because they are false they stay "on message" in their falseness. This contrasts with stories that are more truthful which tend to include questions and unknowns that might later contradict or modify the story. So for an exam…

> One of the things that stands out in false stories is that because they are false they stay "on message" in their falseness. This contrasts with stories that are more truthful which tend to include questions and unknowns that might later contradict or modify the story. This is the main barometer that I use to see if I live in an echo chamber or not and orient myself in the world. The people I listen to (Rogan, Pete…

>This is the main barometer that I use to see if I live in an echo chamber or not and orient myself in the world. The people I listen to (Rogan, Peterson, Weinsteins, Rubin, and to a lesser extent Shapiro and Harris) tend not to speak authoritatively except in narrow circumstances and their opponents (and people I disagree with) tend to speak as if their opinions are self-evidently correct and disagreement is out of the question.

I've found it to be a useful tool in other spheres as well.

The further you are from mainstream medicine, the greater the confidence signaling. Doctors tend to express the least confidence, and crackpots the most. This is why alternative medicine thrives.

Re: How Lies Spread Online

#80

Post by igivanov »

slg wrote: post #26
munk-a wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the backlash we're seeing against mainstream media these days are, I believe, in a large part driven by those reporters that failed to do their due diligence when it came to Iraq. Reporters should expect to be told lies often, when those lies are blindly printed and distributed it does a lot of damage to society's trust. I think with Iraq it went beyond negligence, but likely not at all levels, preferring to hir…

The definition of lying generally involves intent. Do you think these journalists generally are intending to mislead with statements they know are untrue in the same way the producers of fake news do?

This behaviour covers the whole spectrum from deliberate misinformation to honest belief in the lies they were fed. In between you can find journalists that don't care about the truth but are ready to write anything that pays or ones that would lie for the sake of (in their opinion) a greater good, or ones that would spread lies out of sloppiness or ignorance. This applies to producers of fake news too.

I am not sure anyone should bother finding a proper label for each shade of those lies.

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