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

#341

Post by vibrato » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

beetwenty wrote: post #310

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…

This is definitely where my mom has gone. She thinks Alex Jones is very funny, but then ends up buying the books of conspiracy theorists and interjecting paranoid right talking points into everyday conversations. Given that it happens so commonly around retirement, I think this is a function of not wanting to struggle or achieve anything anymore, and therefore succumbing fully to a convenient view, one which gives yo…

If you don't think Alex Jones' gay frog song is funny, well then I just dont know what funny is.

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

#342

Post by jhayward » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #130

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.

it's probably less likely for younger people because we grew up with this form of media.

It's far more likely that younger people simply don't share any kind of news articles very much. I.e., their media consumption patterns are different.

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

#343

Post by pasabagi » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #329

aero142 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same with 4chan, from what I've heard. There's a lesson here about social media: if you tolerate people pretending to be Nazis "as a joke", then you will soon become overrun with actual Nazis.

I can confirm. I was on 4chan a lot as a teenager (some ten years ago, now), and the Nazism was generally more a joke about how nasty and intolerant the board was. There were even 'raids' (essentially cyber-bullying) on racists.

I can only guess that things must have gone downhill when the site was taken over by Hiroyuki Nishimura, who has some pretty right-wing political views. That said, there's also a kind of natural affinity in the humiliated-outsider-mentality that 4chan had that fits with Nazism in a way that I feel has become more and more clear in recent years.

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

#344

Post by EnFinlay » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

zelon88 wrote: post #272

A almost guarantee that 100% of the people who believe clickbait fake news articles from bogus and untrustworthy sources also have never heard of the scientific method. I believe that many older people find critical thinking to be taboo, and prefer to take things at face value because they confuse passivity with wisdom. Why question something when someone will come along any minute to make you feel comfortable anyway…

> 100% of the people who believe...have never heard of the scientific method

Ludicrous. Smart and educated people fall for scams and join cults.

> many older people find critical thinking to be taboo

What?

> They tend to be wrong when they think independently

You realize everything in our world was built by the generations before us, right? Shoulders of giants and all that?

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

#345

Post by protomyth » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

deadmik3 wrote: post #334

protomyth wrote: post #322

My Dad (mid 70s in age) shares the fake news articles because he thinks they are funny. He still cannot believe that people take so much of this crap seriously. Of course, when you have an elected representative that thinks an island will tip over if you put too many people on it, its not hard to understand where critical thinking has failed.

I've been realizing more and more as I grow up that many of the old people I thought were retarded are actually playing dumb and punking me hard into getting trolled by their shenanigans, making me the retarded one

He's not playing dumb or trying to punk anyone. He thinks these people are idiots and wants to share the stupid so we all can get a laugh. He's not spreading it for you to believe it. Its like the old Weekly World News that got bought and left in the diner. Its so absurd that its funny to read. I still think I have the article where the North Dakota governor sent a hit team to kill the devil. Most of the fake news these days is just as stupid.

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

#346

Post by sparkie » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

octernion wrote: post #338

sparkie wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

i really can't tell if you are responding in some weird attempt at playing devils advocate (in some sad alt-right personality), but in case you are actually responding in good faith... sadly it's impossible to be both "not racist, nor sexist" _and_ against "positive discrimination". not sure how much more simple i can make it for ya. sorry. no one is angry because one person of color or woman is rejected from a posit…

"Positive discrimination" is racism. Or sexism. Or whatever group-ism it is being used to disadvantage at the favour of some other group.

The idea that whites are privileged is the opposite of reality in many cases now. Non-whites have "entitlements" which whites do not, which favour them in things like hiring.

The concept itself, that someone of a certain skin color should be given preference over somebody of another skin color, is racist whatever way you wish to spin it. If you're favoring one group because you dislike the other group, you're the kind of shitty person you mentioned.

If you're favoring them because you pity them, and that pity is derived from your subconscious association with a group that you think aught to be pitied because of a certain stereotype (eg, skin color), then you might think that you're a good person for having such feelings - but you're really just a closet racist.

I get that it has not always been the case that everyone had equality of opportunity, and that certain groups were disadvantaged in the past. We can't change the past, but we can create the future. Instead of repeating the past, by reversing the group roles, I'm in favour of eliminating all forms of discrimination.

I'm astounded by your lack of self-awareness of your racism and sexism. Apparently all white men are privileged, or at least, some of them are, so we can use this to make judgements about all white men. Great. You're not a hypocrite in the slightest.

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

#347

Post by wbronitsky » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

tropo wrote: post #315

wbronitsky wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

You're making straw man arguments without any proof or substance. Is there anything, articles, quotes, even tweets, anything that shows that the Steel Dossier is fake news? I'll admit that I thought it was unnecessary and possibly fake at the outset, but the data changed my mind. A court ruling, the news that two USA sitting Presidents were briefed on it, and the fact that the people who continue to deny it tell provable lies on a daily basis is a pretty strong set of data to counter the points you are making.

This leads me to the conclusion that you are either 1) uninterested in the facts 2) making your arguments in bad faith or 3) all of the above

In any case, arguing with you will not bring further truth out. Enjoy your day

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

#348

Post by ThomPete » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

oasd1011 wrote: post #337

ThomPete wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means. Please show me this new problem that didn't exist before and please show how this is actually convincing people to change their minds about a subject matter. There is nothing what so ever that makes "fake news" worse than your or mine self-delusional idea of what is true ESPECIALLY in politics which has nothing to do with truth but perspective. The actual problems with social media platforms like FB and…

You're completely delusional if you believe this.

If I believe what exactly?

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

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Post by ryanmetz » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

Discerning whether a story is fake or not is a cognitive task. Many people over the age of 65 are in some stage of cognitive decline. It should not be surprising to anyone that they would score more poorly than young adults.

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

#350

Post by pixl97 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #158

Aromasin wrote: post #153

While this is complete conjecture, I don't think the ability to ascertain truth from falsehood is uniquely age related; I believe it comes down to the age of media you were raised in. That's not to say it age doesn't play a factor at all, as cognitive function does decline as you get older. Unfortunately we don't have the data to control for generational changes, so 'older people' and 'the current older generation' a…

> I don't think the ability to ascertain truth from falsehood is uniquely age related; I believe it comes down to the age of media you were raised in... I don't know man? I think it has a whole lot more to do with the common sense of the individual. If you're the type of person who will believe that the US never landed on the moon, or that Hillary, congresspeople and bankers are sexually molesting children who are he…

>congresspeople and bankers are sexually molesting children who are held captive in the basement of a pizzeria, then there's not much that changing a media source is gonna do for you.

Let's adjust that a little bit.

Movie producers are sexually molesting children and women, and the police are helping covering up and not investigating it, for decades.