maybe a black (or rather orange) swan skewed the results ;)
People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
61–70 of 437 posts
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#62Having spent Christmas back home, I've come to the conclusion that people over 65 should not have the right to vote. You've had almost forty years of voting, you don't really have any future left, and your minds aren't what they used to be. Please stay out of it.
Wow. Should we also say that people younger than 30 should not vote because they do not have the life experiences necessary to make rational decisions?
People aged 18 to 30 should vote.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, politics aside, the younger generation has some sophistication about domain names (which are essentially their news sources) in general. They know a domain that's been around vs. one like justice-freedom-eagle.usa that looks like a default wordpress template with stock clip art. They may get their news from aggregators and live in their respective bubbles, but they're more likely to see through a shady looking…
> the younger generation has some sophistication about domain names (which are essentially their news sources) in general. Is that really true though? A lot of the younger folks on my Facebook share stuff from things like "natural-truth-health.net" or "gmo-truth-toxic.tk" or "naturalnews.com".
Yeah, the "natural health" thing is an actual religion these days, and lots of younger people buy into it.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#64I can believe this - my old man is a sucker for these.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#65It makes sense - they grew up in a time where news was (relatively) reliable/truthful, so perhaps don't have the same "this may not be true" skepticism that younger generations have.
> It makes sense - they grew up in a time where news was (relatively) reliable/truthful, No, they grew up in a time when media distortion was less likely to be revealed because the major media was narrower and it's ideological biases more consistent, and voices outside the major media had major barriers to reaching any substantial audience.
Precisely.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#66I've been thinking of building a 'fake news' app to embarrass people like this who share fake news.
The idea is to have a legitimate looking site.
The link would be something like 'thebostonreporter.com' where it looks like a real news URL and the content ALSO looks like a legitimate news site.
The site would create news stories that confirm the bias of people who tend to share fake news.
For example, "Hillary Clinton Convicted of Money Laundering in Boston Court" or something like that...
Then we push it on social media.
Once the links has gone out and has been distributed across social media we flip the content of the link and say, basically:
"You've been the victim of fake news!"
and explain what they did wrong and how to be more critical of links they share.
PART of this is going to have to be to shame them.
Another part is to make it clear that the next link they share MIGHT be another "fake news time bomb" that could revert and embarrass them again - hopefully making them reconsider sharing fake links in the future.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is digital literacy the problem? Believing that a prominent politician ran a prostitution ring is a basic reasoning problem. I think we'll have to wait until they die off.
They are taking Dominique Strauss-Kahn down for exactly that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn
Details and priors matter here. He seems to have been involved in the "procuring" middleman role, as was Berlusconi (who largely got away with it until one of the girls was underage).
"Male French or Italian politician involved in sexual misconduct" is well within the range of plausible news; the whole pizzagate thing relied on all sorts of alleged implausible details.
Then there's the UK's "Dolphin Square" controversy, which largely went silent after Lord Ashcroft started threatening people with libel lawsuits and in any case is now buried under Brexit news. I've filed that firmly in the "Don't Know, and maybe impossible to know" category. The public inquiry rumbles on and will no doubt not report until all the accused are safely dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Inquiry_into_Child...
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It makes sense - they grew up in a time where news was (relatively) reliable/truthful, No, they grew up in a time when media distortion was less likely to be revealed because the major media was narrower and it's ideological biases more consistent, and voices outside the major media had major barriers to reaching any substantial audience.
Hmmm. Time magazine, the morning newspapers and CBS/ABC/NBC evening news was much more middle of the road than today's Drudge/Huffpost, CNN/Fox and google/reddit (and HN) type ideological bubbles. More straight news. Back farther in the past, the many competing newspapers were very partisan. Perhaps we're just back to that situation.
> Hmmm. Time magazine, the morning newspapers and CBS/ABC/NBC evening news was much more middle of the road than today's Drudge/Huffpost, CNN/Fox and google/reddit (and HN) type ideological bubbles. More straight news.
Are you sure? How can you tell?
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#69It makes sense - they grew up in a time where news was (relatively) reliable/truthful, so perhaps don't have the same "this may not be true" skepticism that younger generations have.
> It makes sense - they grew up in a time where news was (relatively) reliable/truthful, No, they grew up in a time when media distortion was less likely to be revealed because the major media was narrower and it's ideological biases more consistent, and voices outside the major media had major barriers to reaching any substantial audience.
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 their ability to do original reporting and check facts. They are the victims of dishonest influencing, not the originators. Fox News is the only major mainstream media source that has completely turned news into dishonest influencing operation.
Today the distortions are the same but there is significant increase in intentional influencing with data and arguments that those who propagate them don't believe. Using the same talking point to argue for and against issues is good example of this.
Shady figures like Christopher Blair just sit in their homes and push out (non-mainstream viewpoints) disinformation they know is false.
Re: People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds
#70Having spent Christmas back home, I've come to the conclusion that people over 65 should not have the right to vote. You've had almost forty years of voting, you don't really have any future left, and your minds aren't what they used to be. Please stay out of it.
So, what you're saying is, people who have 40 years more experience of life than you have, people who've paid taxes for most of those years, people who sacrificed a better lifestyle so they could change your nappies, etc shouldn't vote because their political opinions don't chime with yours? You don't know it yet but a lot of what you think you know stems from fake news too.
Do they have 40 years of experience, or one year of experience 40 times?