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Information overload helps fake news spread

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#71

Post by jellicle »

thehappypm wrote: post #58
bananabreakfast wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the hell is Russiagate? If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article

Russiagate is basically the idea that the Trump campaign was working closely with Russia to "cheat" the 2016 election. The Mueller report showed.. Russia was messing around for sure, but the Trump campaign wasn't really involved in any meaningful way.

On the contrary, the Mueller report showed that the Trump campaign was working quite closely with Russian actors in a wide variety of ways, and at the very top of the campaign.

https://www.justsecurity.org/63838/guide-to-the-mueller-repo...

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#72

Post by kev_da_dev »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #54
Nacdor wrote: post #44

I think one of the root causes of this is the increasingly partisan behavior of the "mainstream" media. People are sick of having their opinions dictated to them, they're sick of media outlets that all push the same narratives 24/7 (Russiagate, anyone?), and they're desperately searching for any outlet that will objectively report "all the news that's fit to print" (as the NY Times likes to say). In the past year we…

What in the hell is Russiagate? If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article

"Russiagate", as I perceive it, refers to the four-year narrative pushed by the collective media that Donald Trump himself colluded with Russians in order to steal the 2016 election, among other things.

Taxpayers funded a multi-month, multi-millionaire special counsel to investigate these claims. Nothing came of it.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#73

Post by loufe »

beefield wrote: post #38
goalieca wrote: post #3

I’ve always found the news from my trusted sources to be reasonable and accurate until it covers something I know about. Then it seems like a complete mess. Humans tend to trust the first thing they hear and we tend to be less skeptical about news media especially if they seem very confident or persuasive.

Generally, I have tip my hat to The Economist Here. Even on the things I think I know something about, they seem to get their facts straight.

I have to agree. I've been a weekly reader for over 5 years now and I always find their analyses of my own country (Canada) more eloquent and poignant than our own media. I do recommend carefully choosing which articles to take in without a grain or tablespoon of salt. They have excellent practices but they still have an agenda and a world-view through which they frame things. Sometimes I think I'm being smart and reading between the lines but as the thread's target article aptly points out: I'm so swamped with information I never really go down the rabbit hole of proving/disproving my thoughts on articles.

I see the paper as a friend who I find annoying in a few ways but that I nevertheless appreciate and generally trust.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#74

Post by _jal »

thehappypm wrote: post #58
bananabreakfast wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the hell is Russiagate? If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article

Russiagate is basically the idea that the Trump campaign was working closely with Russia to "cheat" the 2016 election. The Mueller report showed.. Russia was messing around for sure, but the Trump campaign wasn't really involved in any meaningful way.

That is incorrect. The Mueller report clearly showed a great deal of coordination, and could not reach accusations because of limits placed on the investigation.

A Mueller investigation with different parameters would have reached very different conclusions.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#75

Post by chordalkeyboard »

vorpalhex wrote: post #14

I'm really conflicted over this article because it makes some really good points but is missing the forest through the trees. Information overload is very real, and people are very prone to making mistakes when digesting information from social media. The answer isn't to kill social media or force users to solve CAPTCHAS before posting. It's to improve those critical rationality skills and the ability to analyze info…

> The fix isn't to try and play legal games with social media providers, but to teach users how the mousetrap works and what are the levers they can control (and the ones they can't).

In other words, empower people.

I agree but this is part of the struggle. All the con artists tell you they want you to be empowered to make the correct decisions yourself and the other guy is a con artist who bullshits you into thinking he is trying to empower you.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#76

Post by brohoolio »

thehappypm wrote: post #58
bananabreakfast wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the hell is Russiagate? If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article

Russiagate is basically the idea that the Trump campaign was working closely with Russia to "cheat" the 2016 election. The Mueller report showed.. Russia was messing around for sure, but the Trump campaign wasn't really involved in any meaningful way.

How many people from that campaign are felons now?

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#77

Post by [deleted] »

Nacdor wrote: post #44

I think one of the root causes of this is the increasingly partisan behavior of the "mainstream" media. People are sick of having their opinions dictated to them, they're sick of media outlets that all push the same narratives 24/7 (Russiagate, anyone?), and they're desperately searching for any outlet that will objectively report "all the news that's fit to print" (as the NY Times likes to say). In the past year we…

[deleted]

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#78

Post by jonnycomputer »

Nacdor wrote: post #44

I think one of the root causes of this is the increasingly partisan behavior of the "mainstream" media. People are sick of having their opinions dictated to them, they're sick of media outlets that all push the same narratives 24/7 (Russiagate, anyone?), and they're desperately searching for any outlet that will objectively report "all the news that's fit to print" (as the NY Times likes to say). In the past year we…

Greenwald complained that his editors wouldn't let him publish objectively false stories. No sympathy.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#79

Post by chordalkeyboard »

yokaze wrote: post #57
goalieca wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where to draw the line between misinformation and the government approved version of the truth. The facts of any matter are not always so simple and lies by omission can be as misleading as any falsehood. Our justice system tries to resolve this through an adversarial system. It’s not perfect but I can’t imagine allowing any single entity to determine what the truth is.

How about drawing the line at the government? My understanding is though, that this is a bit of a straw-mans argument. There is no credible proposal to only allow the government approved version of truth. I thought the marketplace of ideas was a popular concept in the US.

you are misinformed:

"But as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier. Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?" -Richard Stengel, Biden Transition Team Member

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#80

Post by chordalkeyboard »

newacct583 wrote: post #2

I sympathize with people who want to see a technological basis for this, I really do. I just don't buy it. We just saw a press conference an hour ago by the executive office of the most powerful nation in the world allege with a straight face that the recent election was tainted by Canadian election machines running malicious software written by Venezuela, Cuba, "likely" China, and directed by George Soros and (from…

> And obviously evidence was provided for none of this.

what kind of evidence would you expect to see if it was true?

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