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

Post by AJ007 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #193

dandare wrote: post #110

Anecdotal evidence: I remember how my 65 years old dad changed from a large-minded, world-traveling retired professor to an avid consumer of fake news in the span of fewer than two years. Yes, it was a shock, but most of all I am mortified that this could happen to me as well when I get to his age.

I remember a boss not so long ago, similar age. Started having a rant about a woman that was emailing him, flirting with him. I realised it was some kind of phishing thing. He just took it at face value. He wasn't naïve, and had all his faculties, so it really stuck out. Maybe its like country bumpkins without street smarts, maybe they just havent learned the defenses needed?

Post by tropo » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:50 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."

Post by B1FF_PSUVM » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

AceyMan wrote: post #281

tnolet wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe in the US. Come to Germany and I'll show you the snorefest of the news media here.

I'm a yankee and I like the boring, straightforward take the Germans have wrt news. I've recently added DW.com to my regular news scan, joining the BBC and the trad USA outlets (AP, Reuters, NPR).

Post by ThomPete » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #311

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 fin…

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

aero142 wrote: post #270

dkarl wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad was similar, but he thought it was all a joke. He thought sites like rense and infowars were today's equivalent of the counterculture political satire from when he was young. He knew there were people on those sites who weren't in on the joke, and people with mental illness, but I think he thought it was maybe 5% or 10%, and it just added to the fun for him. He got reverse-pwned by Poe's Law. Yet still he foun…

I'm pretty sure /r/the_donald started out as a joke and slowly turned real at some point. I still don't quite understand what happened. It would make an interesting investigation.