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

#381

Post by Brakenshire » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

theWheez wrote: post #166

Brakenshire wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s more 24 hour news than the mainstream media.

Could you expand on what you mean by this separation?

I think the things you mention are just more characteristic of rolling news in particular than they are of the media in general, which is incredibly varied in form, tone and reliability. Flashy graphics, soap opera style narratives, shouting for drama etc are all dictated by the economic forces which underpin rolling news, in particular having to generate an enormous amount of material as cheaply as possible, and in effect a competition to get viewers addicted. There is fantastic news and analysis elsewhere, a large part of it in mainstream publications.

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

#382

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #378

mensetmanusman wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple levels of trolling happening in these situations. Many read Infowars as satire like the Onion, and they get off pretending to believe its true just to mess with people. It’s the whole flat earth thing.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night If someone’s hobby is pretending to be an asshole or stupid... they might actually just be an asshole or stupid.

“I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.”

—Dorothy Sayers

That’s twice this thread I’ve seen this Vonnegut quote as a thought-terminating cliche, which is two times too many. If you want to have a deeper discussion on the effects of irony on a community, by all means let’s do so. What we should not do is reduce the entire thing down to a pithy mess of fake profundity based on the fame of its speaker, that would be shouted down as the unsubstantiated conclusion it is, if any one of us said it.

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

#383

Post by asabjorn » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #374

sparkie wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the concerns, but your "solutions" are deeply flawed and faith based. Your idea that whites won't be discriminated is a joke, because it's already reality. Whites are actively discriminated against. This is what "positive discrimination" is. It means that if you have 9 white candidates and 1 non-white candate apply for 2 jobs, and you have a diversity quota to fill, then the non-white candidate has a 100…

White People are not actively discriminated against, period. Your fears are absurd and unfounded, considering white people still compose the majority of tech and that has changed very little.

You can’t have it both ways; claiming no discrimination is happening to a group and then applying social engineering based upon the immutable traits of that group.

The questions isn’t if there is discrimination, but how much of it there is and what the effects are. You might argue that it has a good reason and others might disagree with your arguments.

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

#384

Post by mensetmanusman » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #378

mensetmanusman wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple levels of trolling happening in these situations. Many read Infowars as satire like the Onion, and they get off pretending to believe its true just to mess with people. It’s the whole flat earth thing.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night If someone’s hobby is pretending to be an asshole or stupid... they might actually just be an asshole or stupid.

It also describes many professional commedians. Humans are strange :)

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

#385

Post by oldmancoyote » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

One would think from this title that I share more fake news than younger people. I'm 72. I don't share news at all.

What is "more fake news"? Is it that some individuals share more fake news than others or more individuals share at least some fake news?

I'm sure a better title could be composed.

One would think from these comments that younger people don't share fake news. There is a reason the words 'naive" and "youth" are often associated with each other. Youth trying to evaluate/judge older people is, in a word, naive itself.

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

#386

Post by SkyMarshal » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

Cakez0r wrote: post #226

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…

> I also suspect that many of those artfully worded and subtly manipulative email forwards of the late 90s and 2000s May have been Russian psyops experimenting with viral information. They were always just a little too clever and effective while trying to look colloquial and organic, and I always suspected it was some PR outfit somewhere cranking them out, but could never divine a reason for the non-political ones. B…

>How can you possibly post comment on the elderly not having highly attuned bs detectors and then close with that paragraph? What irony!

Are you saying you think all those email forwards during that time period were all organic and none were the result of PR/propaganda/psyops operations?

I'm honestly not sure which is the null hypothesis here, and thus who owns the burden of proof.

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

#387

Post by SkyMarshal » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #182

SkyMarshal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data journalism and long-form deep investigative journalism is fine, or least less bad. With the caveat that data journalism that illustrates past or current events is fine, but that which tries to draw correlations or make predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. Short form journalism I ignore, or seek the primary source (like a president’s speech or similar).

I don't trust long-form investigative journalism one bit. It relies heavily on anecdata and emotional narrative to manipulate you into a particular view.

We probably have different things in mind. The best example of what I'm talking about is Bloomberg's reporting back in 2011 on the Fed's actions during the financial crisis, including their lawsuit to force the Fed to respond to their FOIA requests:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-23/fed-s-onc...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/world?pid=20601087&sid=afi7TJ...

That was not only hard work, but given that most financial media tends to avoid biting the hand that feeds it, uncommonly gutsy. One of the best examples of investigative journalism I'm aware of.

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

#388

Post by nnain » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

Given the increased hostility between religion due to inflammatory social media posts -- I wonder if things are harsher now, or whether these sentiments were always there and facebook just made it easier for people to say things! Maybe, in a way, it's ok that people have shown what they truly believed in, and so our understanding of people's true belief's has been expedited.

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

#389

Post by leetbulb » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

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 all happened when my father got an iPad and a Facebook account. Now he sits around and consumes the cancerous vomit spewed by "old friends" and predatory "news" outlets. He doesn't understand how any of it works; he has fallen victim, and there's nothing at all that I can do about it. He takes pride in his involvement, even if it's just consumption. It's tearing him away from reality and his family. It's almost as sad, scary, and infuriating as watching someone decline due to mental disease. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

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

#390

Post by FlyMoreRockets » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

AgentME wrote: post #361

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.

I love the Kurt Vonnegut quote "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." I think people who decide to like a thing "ironically" generally progress to liking it unironically without realizing it. Some continue to claim it's ironic, but when all their actions (including voting) are fully consistent with someone that likes the thing unironically, you have to wonder if the word "i…

> "...you have to wonder if the word 'ironic' still has any meaning."

This is perhaps the most ironic thing.