People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds • Hacker News Board

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#311

Post by spamizbad » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #92

This article is a perfect example of the incredibly sloppy and biased thinking that happens in media and which is part of the very problem it talks about. Fake news first and formost is a clickbait scam to get advertising dollars, NOT a political propaganda approach and this tendency to keep using it as if it's an actual political issue is really absurd and itself an example of what is probably more an example of slo…

There is some empirical evidence to suggest that younger generations are better at sussing out opinion vs fact than older generations. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/older...

My own pet hypothesis for the larger phenomenon discussed here is this: Younger generations had schooling that attempted to make them "college ready" and part of that college readiness was understanding how to find and cite credible sources, alongside understanding what a "primary source" is. Sure, it didn't stick with everyone, but I do think bits-and-pieces of that are imprinted on Millennials.

Along with that you have many younger people doing white collar "knowledge work" which often involves compiling and synthesizing information from multiple sources and drawing a conclusion. This understanding of "how the sausage is made" carries into media literacy when say, examining an editorial for factual accuracy.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#312

Post by refurb » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

hunter2_ wrote: post #145

ams6110 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when CNN launched. News all day was a novelty; no other TV network was like it. I was a kid, but it did seem to me to be much more conservative (in the sense of not overtly sensational) and "straight" news at the time. I guess today's CNN and their much more pronounced left-wing orientation is just a response to the right-leaning stuff from Fox? Or it just seems more left-wing now in comparison.

Probably the latter: neutral, unbiased, centrist viewpoints are now given -- by folks throughout the entire spectrum -- a "left" label.

Neutral and unbiased certainly don't describe CNN.

As the OP said, a decade ago you could make that claim. They were much more "news". Now their rating have been in the toilet for years, so they've gone to extremes to gain viewership.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#313

Post by sparkie » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

octernion wrote: post #291

sparkie wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social justice religion is not "being nice" or "not being racist." Most of humanity fits into those categories. (Obviously there are some exceptions). Social justice is about action to force your version of morality or ethics on society, usually by whatever means necessary, or without concern about the collateral damage caused by such actions. It usually manifests as complete hypocrisy. Let's stop hate by being h…

> Most of humanity fits into those categories. [citation needed]. "social justice" is absolutely that "most of humanity" does _not_ fall into those categories and in fact there are massive structural failures with society. it's not "hypocrisy" to deplatform (& socially shun) racists & misogynists, and acknowledge white privilege. if you disagree with those basic tenants than you aren't worthy of being in the discussi…

Who draws the line of what these categories are?

Let's say for example, you are not racist, nor sexist, but you also do not subscribe to the "positive discrimination" (oxymoron) bullshit, and instead of hiring people to meet diversity quotas, you hire people purely based on their fitness for the role you are hiring for.

When you reject certain "unprivileged" individuals because others are more fit for the role, they take a disliking to you and falsely label you as racist for this decision. The hoards of do-gooder SJWs rally behind them and wrongly damage the reputation of your company based on a completely false testimony.

Who are the shitty people here?

Also, when you classify people based on their skin colour (white), and then use this to make a sweeping generalization, this is called racism. Your hypocrisy is offensive.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#314

Post by jim_bailie » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

tropo wrote: post #215

jameslk wrote: post #165

Here's the study since the article didn't link directly to it: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586

Wow, that's bad. The definition of "fake news" is a list of 21 conservative web sites chosen by BuzzFeed. For some reason, BuzzFeed wasn't in that list. Unsurprisingly, by that definition, fake news is primarily spread by conservatives! Chart C shows that as the strongest result by far. Chart B, going by age, is a weaker result. Well yes, it seems that conservatives live longer (living less dangerously?) or that peop…

Uh oh, you're getting grayed down. Get those critical thoughts out of your head at once and get back onto the reservation.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#315

Post by tropo » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

wbronitsky wrote: post #304

tropo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BuzzFeed is the site that spread the "piss dossier" nonsense. You can't get much more fake than that without invoking aliens and Elvis.

Are you referring to the dossier that a court found was in the public interest to publish because it had so much merit? The same dossier that two presidents were briefed on and was a subject of an active government investigation? That dossier is now, provably, not fake. It seems like you might be unintentionally spreading fake news yourself. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/12/20...

The existence of the dossier itself is provably not fake. The content however is, along with the original story of how it came to be funded, created, and disseminated.

It's not even plausible. The man is a germophobe. He had to overcome a handshake aversion (Where has your hand been today? Eeeew...) to even run for office.

It was trivial for the people in power to brief presidents or start a government investigation, with or without merit, and this leads the court to determine public interest. It's getting to be circular logic here, with merit coming from merit.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#316

Post by russdill » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

hnruss wrote: post #307

Also from the article: "Users who identified as conservative were more likely than users who identified as liberal to share fake news: 18 percent of Republicans shared links to fake news sites, compared to less than 4 percent of Democrats."

Did they bother controlling for political affiliation? People 65 and older are much more likely to be Republicans.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#317

Post by nabla9 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:39 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #277

nabla9 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media distortion and truthfulness are not the same thing. People and media will always have a viewpoint that distorts their objectivity. That is just fact of live and not necessarily bad thing as long as it's honest belief. Media used to be more reliable and truthful in the past with the normal distortions that people had. Mainstream media is still like this. Their problem is the lack of money and time that lowers th…

Fox isn't the first, nor is it the only one, especially outside of the US. The UK tabloids have operated a lot like that for pretty much their entire existence, peddling misinformation and moral panics like they're going out of fashion. Hell, the Daily Mail even had a song written about it cause of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI It's also pretty prevalent on the radio, and has a fair few historical…

New York Daily News, Daily Mail or UK tabloids are not considered legitimate journalism. They are yellow trash, tabloid journalism, also known as rag newspapers. They belong to the same category as Infowars.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#318

Post by lumberjack » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

nikkwong wrote: post #308

marton78 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be beginning dementia / Alzheimer's. At least that is the case for my father. Similarly to believing fake news, also lost his humour, he just doesn't get jokes any more, he takes them at face value. I hope this is not the case for your dad and I'm sorry if I scared you, but you could consider having him checked.

What's the use in getting it checked? It's not like early cancer detection in which an early diagnosis might have some effect on the outcome of the disease. (?)

There are meds that can slow down the demise. Also just knowing helps a lot in how to deal with the suffering.

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#319

Post by 50656E6973 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #212

dev_dull wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stay unplugged from social media and especially mainstream media and you’ll be just fine.

Yes, completely isolate yourself. It'll do you good. /s

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio

Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds

#320

Post by NovaS1X » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

gammateam wrote: post #228

SkyMarshal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it’s at least partly that the elderly didn’t grow up with Internet, never really understood its culture, didn’t hang out on 4chan, Reddit, etc, and never developed a highly attuned BS/scam detector like more of the younger generations did. Many of these folks don’t even really understand how the Windows UI motif works, they’ve just memorized enough procedures to get stuff done on it. I also suspect that man…

The thing that bothered me about 4chan was that everyone pretended to be silly and insensitive but were competent people that would run the country in a few years I always had every problem accurately solved with b from people that were lawyers and doctors or were rising up the ranks in those fields

I'm sure you remember this quote then: "a community who gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be surrounded by idiots who think they are in good company"

This explains SO much of not just 4chan sub-groups, but a lot of internet groups, and I honestly don't think older generations can't think like this. Ironic humor doesn't occur to them; they take it all at face value. Unfortunately ideas spread on 4chan and elsewhere stop becoming memes and start becoming someones reality.

There's no better example of this than Facebook. A graveyard of dead, crappy, overused memes, and younger generations are not using Facebook anymore, it's older generations now.