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‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

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Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#111
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: Google is doing this. https://www.allsides.com/blog/audit-finds-evidence-googles-b...

Not that I fundamentally disagree with their results, but the study seems like it has significant bias itself. In what context is Fox News only slightly right-leaning? Anything critical of the current administration is not left-leaning either. In the past, most of these organizations have been critical of the Obama administration, but they weren't considered right-leaning then.

You're thinking of the old Fox, and possibly predicting a future Fox. Former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile works for Fox now.

Politically, Fox does not stay put. To maximize market share, they always want to be just barely to the right of their main competition. Since that competition has gone quite a bit left in recent years, Fox has followed. By some measurements Fox is now even slightly to the left of the average American. Fox will immediately move back to the right if the competition moves right, because Fox can't risk crossing over.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be hard for the lay people trying to be informed to trust 'the science' while think tanks continually abuse science and statistics.

exactly. Science shares a fair bit of the blame too. Not enough peer review and verification of results. Corporations can pay scientists for whatever results they want to put out in a press release and there is no shortage of journals that will publish total garbage if you're willing to pay them enough. The lack of integrity and oversight in the scientific community makes it very hard for people to tell what they can…

> Not enough peer review and verification of results. Corporations can pay scientists for whatever results they want to put out in a press release and there is no shortage of journals that will publish total garbage if you're willing to pay them enough.

There's a term for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_by_press_conference

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#113
post #35

The "best" fake news these days is the stuff that doesn't register even to people are read-in on the usual anti-patterns. Subtle framing, selective quotation, anonymous sources, "repeat the lie" techniques, and so on, are the ones that I see happening today that are hard to immunize yourself from. Ironically, the people who fall for these are more likely to self-identify as being aware and clued in on how to avoid fa…

Fake news is less about outright lying and more about controlling and enforcing a certain narrative. That’s a problem especially when 6 companies own almost all of the media. I think the solution is more independent journalism. I’m already seeing a lot of it on Twitter with independent researchers. These people have obvious biases but it’s clear, which makes these sources oddly more useful even if they’re openly part…

Going up the food chain, you have major governments, political bodies, entire industries that depend on a control of a narrative.

They say history is written by the winner.

When many things are broadly painted as good or evil then there is certainly propaganda involved.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#114
post #97
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of, I saw a particularly blatant example yesterday: https://twitter.com/scottsantens/status/1142442971922653184 I've been following the Andrew Yang campaign since his appearance on the Joe Rogan show and so far as I can tell MSNBC has been at it for months now. The gall still astonishes me: 20 candidates qualified for the debates, he now polls in the top 8 and betting markets even place him in the top five,…

They didn't replace him in the debate, the mistakenly omitted him from a graphic on screen and later corrected it. He only barely cracked the top 8 as of two weeks ago, and with a paltry 2% with a net favorable of +8 in Monmouth's latest poll, which is not very good. I don't really know much about the guy, but he's not making much of a showing in the polls so I'm not surprised that networks aren't focusing on him.

Polls, as we've discovered in 2016, are also largely fake news. To me Yang seems to be the only sane candidate on the left, and the only one who'd be able to give Trump a hard time.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#115
post #35

The "best" fake news these days is the stuff that doesn't register even to people are read-in on the usual anti-patterns. Subtle framing, selective quotation, anonymous sources, "repeat the lie" techniques, and so on, are the ones that I see happening today that are hard to immunize yourself from. Ironically, the people who fall for these are more likely to self-identify as being aware and clued in on how to avoid fa…

And so so many people can't even spot the "usual anti-patterns." I gotta believe that starting with the basic stuff will be the first step to getting better at recognizing the less basic stuff. The same techniques could potentially help people recognize the less basic stuff, teach them how to do it. But I think an equal and opposite problem is that these days people don't believe "real" news as much as they believe "…

> But I think an equal and opposite problem is that these days people don't believe "real" news as much as they believe "fake" news.

This is the endgame, and the reason fake news exists. There's no better way to destabilize a democracy than to cast doubt upon all journalism. Democracy depends on a well-informed populace, and if all information becomes subjective it cannot continue to function.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#117
post #114
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't replace him in the debate, the mistakenly omitted him from a graphic on screen and later corrected it. He only barely cracked the top 8 as of two weeks ago, and with a paltry 2% with a net favorable of +8 in Monmouth's latest poll, which is not very good. I don't really know much about the guy, but he's not making much of a showing in the polls so I'm not surprised that networks aren't focusing on him.

Polls, as we've discovered in 2016, are also largely fake news. To me Yang seems to be the only sane candidate on the left, and the only one who'd be able to give Trump a hard time.

This needs a citation. There was a lot of people spinning polls or making bad predictions off polls in 2016 (like every election year), but polls are not fake news. They certainly weren't proven to be fake news just because some people were surprised by the outcome.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#118
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: Google is doing this. https://www.allsides.com/blog/audit-finds-evidence-googles-b...

Not that I fundamentally disagree with their results, but the study seems like it has significant bias itself. In what context is Fox News only slightly right-leaning? Anything critical of the current administration is not left-leaning either. In the past, most of these organizations have been critical of the Obama administration, but they weren't considered right-leaning then.

You can't possibly compare the endless, breathless, full-court attack on Trump from the mainstream media with their occasional symbolic quibbles with Obama. The covered for Obama for years, all through his drone strikes, his kids in cages, his tear gas at the border, his gunwalker scandals and so much more.

It's hard to imagine a mindset where you see media treatment of Obama as comparable to that of Trump. It's night and day in every possible respect. And the donation and poll numbers from these organizations, which are generally 90-95% Democratic-leaning, confirm that.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#119
post #49
post #35

The "best" fake news these days is the stuff that doesn't register even to people are read-in on the usual anti-patterns. Subtle framing, selective quotation, anonymous sources, "repeat the lie" techniques, and so on, are the ones that I see happening today that are hard to immunize yourself from. Ironically, the people who fall for these are more likely to self-identify as being aware and clued in on how to avoid fa…

Second best. The best is selective reporting. Even if every story is reported 100% accurately and objectively, by choosing which stories are promoted, and which buried, you can set any agenda you want. Edit: See https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-i... for an example.

This to me is the most important thing, and has been for decades. When people complain about liberal bias in the news, they’re looking at the small picture - how a particular story was written. They don’t see that what stories are told in the first place get decided by people with a lot of power and money. Instead of focusing on “How should we handle immigration in the US?”, the first question is, “Why are we talking about immigration in the US instead of something else?”

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#120
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polls, as we've discovered in 2016, are also largely fake news. To me Yang seems to be the only sane candidate on the left, and the only one who'd be able to give Trump a hard time.

This needs a citation. There was a lot of people spinning polls or making bad predictions off polls in 2016 (like every election year), but polls are not fake news. They certainly weren't proven to be fake news just because some people were surprised by the outcome.

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