Conservatives Bombarded With Facebook Misinformation Far More Than Liberals In 2020 Election, Study Suggests (forbes.com) 424
According to new research published Thursday, conservatives on Facebook during the 2020 presidential election were more isolated and saw more misinformation than the platform's liberal users -- though Facebook widely affected users' political content in different ways. Slashdot reader RUs1729 shared one of the four peer-reviewed studies, appearing in the journals Science and Nature. Forbes reports: The study, led by two researchers from the University of Texas and New York University, had hundreds of thousands of participants and analyzed mass amounts of Facebook user data. One of the study's papers, which used aggregated data for 208 million U.S. Facebook users, found that most misinformation on Facebook existed within conservative echo chambers, which did not have an equivalent on the liberal side of the platform. The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta's third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news.
In a separate paper that assigned users to Facebook and Instagram feeds chronologically instead of algorithm-based feeds, which are the platforms' default feed types, researchers found users on chronological feeds were less engaged and saw more political content compared to those viewing algorithm-based feeds, along with more content from untrustworthy sources and more content from ideologically moderate friends and sources with mixed audiences. However, the feed analysis noted replacing algorithmic feeds with chronological ones did not create any detectable changes in political attitudes, knowledge or offline behavior.
Another paper assigned nearly 9,000 U.S.-based Facebook users feeds with no reshares, later concluding that the removal of reshared content "substantially" lessened the amount of political news, and content from all untrustworthy sources decreased overall. The two lead researchers and 15 other academics, who had control rights for the study's papers, declined compensation from Meta to ensure an ethical study was completed.
In a separate paper that assigned users to Facebook and Instagram feeds chronologically instead of algorithm-based feeds, which are the platforms' default feed types, researchers found users on chronological feeds were less engaged and saw more political content compared to those viewing algorithm-based feeds, along with more content from untrustworthy sources and more content from ideologically moderate friends and sources with mixed audiences. However, the feed analysis noted replacing algorithmic feeds with chronological ones did not create any detectable changes in political attitudes, knowledge or offline behavior.
Another paper assigned nearly 9,000 U.S.-based Facebook users feeds with no reshares, later concluding that the removal of reshared content "substantially" lessened the amount of political news, and content from all untrustworthy sources decreased overall. The two lead researchers and 15 other academics, who had control rights for the study's papers, declined compensation from Meta to ensure an ethical study was completed.
Here we go (Score:5, Funny)
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Here's your soda, pass the popcorn.
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Trump coined the phrase "alternative facts" when he claimed to have the biggest inauguration ever. https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22... [cnn.com] (it wasn't) https://www.vox.com/policy-and... [vox.com]
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Here we go (Score:2)
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem with elections is that votes need to be simultaneously secret and verifiable. How can you verify a voter is eligible and casting only one vote, while absolutely not having any way to know what that vote is? You can't tie the vote to the person.
Trivial problems already solved in multiple countries
This is why online voting schemes are so hard.
Don't do that then
The verification of the voter and the counting of the votes cannot be linked.
In person voting is simple in most places.
Paper and pencil
Id and a list of voters
People from both sides checking the people counting the votes
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There's always a percent of voters who lost their ID,
There are plenty of forms of ID. That's not a real problem. Name and address is often enough in civilized places.
don't have one,
That's not a real problem. You had to have some form of ID or way to enroll/register to vote in the first place.
moved the day before an election.
If you didn't update your registered address you can vote at your old address. Also an already solved "problem".
or got mugged walking to the polling station?
You're not being serious if you think that's an actual problem. :P
Postal vote early. That way even if you're murdered before the polls open your vote still counts
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It's not secret when you write it. You can be coerced in ways you can't be when you fill in a ballot in private in a polling booth.
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Re: Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
So a husband who threatens to beat his wife if she doesn't vote a certain way would be ok? Because he could verify how she voted under your system.
Or an employer who threatens to fire employees who vote a certain way is ok?
Or a landlord that gives a 10% discount to people who vote their way?
Or a parent who threatens their 18yo child they will be put on the street if they don't vote a certain way?
Voting privacy is as important as medical privacy.
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
My interest in avoiding retaliation for how I voted supersedes your interest in knowing how I voted. If you want to verify that elections are being conducted fairly then volunteer to be a poll worker. But you don't want that, do you? You just want to persecute people for how they voted.
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
You do not need secrecy. In fact I think adding political affiliation as a protected class to non-discrimination laws already in place (akin to religious faith) would suffice. Then, we can have a giant database of voters, and vote conveniently, like online. We could then have a publicly available downloadable massive spreadsheet of every voter, and how they voted on every issue based on where they reside (federal, state, county, local elections). You could vote again to update your vote, and make sure you vote is counted and accurately. Secret ballots were needed in the 1890s. Not today.
Hard pass.
No need to "update voting to make it sexy". Pen and paper, in secret. Simple and known to work well.
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Informative)
Pen and paper isn't simple when you have hundreds of million votes and many voters expecting perfect counts the same night of the election.
Not an actual problem.
As I recall, in 2020 many thought they should just stop counting at midnight because counts after that shouldn't be allowed.
Can't help some people being stupid. Has no bearing on the situation. Or the results of the election.
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Re: Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words, completely ineffectually. Got it.
Re: Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three realities in America, the left's version, the right's version, and absolute reality
Maybe Trump lost the 2020 election, sure. But, to suggest therefore that our elections are button-tight and secure, verifiable and subject to such scrutiny that it deserves the redoubtable faith of every citizen, is a laughably false state of affairs.
You're firmly stuck in the right's version of reality.
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You had me until "Maybe Trump lost the 2020 election"
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Re:Here we go (Score:5, Informative)
Conway's use of the phrase "alternative facts" for demonstrable falsehoods was widely mocked on social media and sharply criticized by journalists and media organizations, including Dan Rather, Jill Abramson, and the Public Relations Society of America. The phrase was extensively described as Orwellian, particularly in reference to the term doublethink. Within four days of the interview, sales of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four had increased 95-fold, which The New York Times and others attributed to Conway's use of the phrase, making it the number-one bestseller on Amazon.com.[2]
That's from the Wikipedia article.
Those people want to run your country.
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
Pfft.
While both sides buy into some insane fabricated things. Right-wingers buy into misinformation easily, that's why your email spam folder is full of scams. The people at the top don't actually believe the lies they tell, it's all about keeping people in the dark while they enrich themselves.
Left-wingers rarely buy into misinformation because the center of the moral compass is "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", which "the few" tends to be billionaires and millionaires who don't pay taxes and establish fake charities to hide their wealth.
Every time some loudmouth rightwing is given screen time, it's always to enrich themselves. Do you think any right-winger touting snake oil actually consumes those overpriced protein powders and stuff? No. They are selling you $100 products that are relabeled dollar store. They just want you to overpay for stuff because you're an idiot.
Anyone rich enough to own more than one property, buys into the cultural fraud that they are entitled to profit off others misery.
Here's an important detail. Who pays for the failures of banks? Taxpayers. Big Corpos, and billionaires minimize their tax burden by shifting their wealth around into private "charity" companies that they control, and thus tax payers are subsidizing billionaires because they aren't paying the taxes they should be paying.
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Informative)
"We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out".
OTOH the right will swallow pretty much anything you want to make up:
All it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then ... our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire."
[...]
Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals â" but they just never take the bait.
Re: Here we go (Score:3)
There is no such thing as a liberal billionaire.
There are only at best centrist billionaires.
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The EU is a great example where government bureaucrats have decided that they need to design and dictate how consumer products work. It's not industry with engineers that should design things the way people want. It's the government that's creating edicts like charge ports.
How on earth you got modded up to 4 is a mystery to me, since there's so much misunderstanding in so few words... EU government bureaucrats didn't design and never have, how products work. They've stood by and now decided that enough is enough, industry is making a mess, and one that's not good for the people. Note that industry never designs things the way people want, that's very naive. Industry designs things as they can and think will make them as successful as possible. That only sometimes aligns with
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
It illustrates how these labels can be quite useless.
Not really. There's a pretty common right wing mindset that everything to the left of the really rather right wing is a homogenous blob of hive mind EU regulating woke liberal transgender black lives matter eco climate alarmist enviro nonsense.
Labels, otherwise known as nouns are useful, but for the wilfully ignorant changing them won't help because they cannot see the difference bewteen a lassiez faire capitalist who thinks religious control is bad for business and a card carrying member of the Socialist Worker Party[*].
The reality is the elites are by and large pushing authoritarian left wing identitarianism,
That's a talking point word salad.
Corporations, academia, and the media are almost universally aligned.
No they are not. This is a weird fantasy and it is just not true. I honestly don't know how you can possibly believe this.
The Murdoch right wing "news" is a huge presence in the US as Fox[+] and the UK as the Daily Mail, GB News, etc. These are, frankly speaking right wing garbage sites where what they post is massively slanted and often detached from reality. You've then got the big social media corporations which have been shown time and time again to go softer on people breaking their rules with right wing opinions than left wing ones.
And then you have corporations which will say whatever they think will make them the most money in the most mercenary way possible. Like whoever is in charge or Bud Light. Try appealing to one group, when that fails, instantly switch and try appealing to another. If corporations are appearing aligned (they are not. Do you really think Rio Tinto is aligned with buzzfeed media?) it's because they think that's where the money is. You're now at the stage where you're arguing effectively that capitalism has a left wing bias which is just perverse.
young children should not learn about rimming from a book in the school library.
You're dishonest and have an axe to grind. While that's clearly hyperbole it is still a dishonest representation of reality. You've been able to learn about rape and incest from a young age in school library books since forever. No right wing person ever complained when that was from the bible.
[*] OK real talk. When i was at uni, the SWP was pretty much the joke party for anyone who wasn't in it. All crazy left the worker will rise power to the proletariat style kind of thing. These days... well sometimes they have a little stand outside Brixton tube station with talking points and policies on a big stand and a lot of it is sounding a lot more reasonable to me than it used to. I think they've actually centralised a bit with 13 years of Tory destruction.
[+] Can it even be caled news legally any more?
Re: Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an excellent illustration of the current problem with politics.
You have carefully constructed a bubble of alternative facts propped up with pseudoacademic language, but when someone punctures it, you protect the bubble at ll costs. The only reasoning you actually have to fall back on is "you popped my bubble therefore you are wrong".
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Oh, you mean like things documented, videos, unaltered, of speeches? Reality checks on stupidity ("trade wars are easy to win"), and on and on?
You're not a nerd, you're a fucking moron, and not even getting paid to post bs.
That's how cults survive. (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm more curious about the sources of the misinformation as well as the categories.
Republicans propagating anti-vaxx stuff to each other could be a great deal.
Re:That's how cults survive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's how cults survive. (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you don't vote for me, you ain't black".
The shoe fits.
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Did the source that tell you that have a domain ending in .ru?
Re:That's how cults survive. (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, in actual data land, Florida and Texas are middle of the pack for state life expectancy (19th and 25th respectively), just a year or two off from California and New York, and with greater life expectancy than any of their neighboring states: https://wisevoter.com/state-ra... [wisevoter.com]
"just a year or two off" is a difference in rank of about 20, i.e. quite significant!
I was curious about that. CDC data for 2022 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/... [cdc.gov] has a different story from what you said:
* California - ranked 4, 79.0 years
* New York - ranked 15, 77.7 years
* Florida - ranked 19, 77.5 years
* Texas - ranked 30, 76.5
The site you cited had different numbers, but it didn't explain where it got its data from nor say what year it is, so I don't know what's up.
* California - ranked 1, 80.9 years
* New York - ranked 3, 80.7 years
* Florida - ranked 19, 79 years (lost significant digits?)
* Texas - ranked 24, 78.6 years
Wikipedia does cite its data source, comes from 2019, and has different numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
* California - ranked 2, 81.2 years
* New York - ranked 3, 81.2 years
* Florida - ranked 15, 79.6 years
* Texas - ranked 25, 78.8 years
How did Texas manage to drop 2 years of life expectancy in such a short time, while other states didn't? I don't know, but the CDC data-crunchers firmly believe it did indeed lose those 2 years of life expectancy. This link hinted at it being covid but without ever stating so explicitly, and without substantiating data. https://www.kxan.com/news/texa... [kxan.com]
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Whichever one you look it, it seems CA/NY residents consistently have greater life expectancy over TX/FL. Its amazing they get so much hate for their "liberal" policies when they likely seem to let people live YEARS longer. I guess some people don't value life as much as others. You'd think "pro-life" states would do their best to ensure their citizens don't get LESS life.
NY exports the dying (Score:3)
Whichever one you look it, it seems CA/NY residents consistently have greater life expectancy over TX/FL.
Many elderly New Yorkers move to Florida for their latter years. One could say NY exports the dying to a degree.
It's amazing they get so much hate for their "liberal" policies when they likely seem to let people live YEARS longer.
Those liberal policies often force the elderly on fixed incomes to move away from NY. The financially well off who stay live longer, the more modest die sooner, it socioeconomic not geographical.
Also some are advised by their doctors to move someplace warmer for their health. Had they stayed in NY those who died in FL may have died even sooner.
Things are far more complicated than a naive whe
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Which is evidence only that you don't have any stronger source than someone being very determined to make a claim. But we already knew that. We're already experiencing the consequences of conservative determination to say whatever they want regardless of the truth.
Re:That's how cults survive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's how cults survive. (Score:5, Insightful)
They should not be teaching a six year-old about sexuality.
I think, in humility, you should either provide supporting arguments for your assertions, or prefix them with "I respect other people's views on this matter but in my humble opinion, ..."
Speaking for myself, as a dad of children this age, I'm glad that their (Catholic) school does provide them age-appropriate learning about sexuality, to augment the teaching my wife and I do at home. I think it gives them a healthier upbringing to hear about these important areas from multiple sources -- specifically including school, integrated into both daily classroom and Social + Emotional Learning classes. I guess the school basically has to, if it's to call itself Jesuit, https://stgc.org/the-jesuit-ap... [stgc.org], in particular these three precepts:
* LOVING: Our graduates are able to move beyond self-interest and self-centeredness in relationship with others. Because they have come to accept and love themselves, they can trust the fidelity of others. They have begun to come to grips with personal prejudices and stereotypes and are able to share themselves with members of the opposite sex, other races, nationalities, faiths and economic backgrounds.
* COMMITTED TO DOING JUSTICE: Our graduates should have learned of the many needs of the local and wider community and are preparing to take their place in this community as competent, concerned, responsible members. They recognize within themselves and the structures of their society the potential for injustice and have begun to develop the skills and motivation to address the injustice. Their faith calls them to use the intellectual powers they have developed to help bring about a Christian transformation of their society and the greater world.
* RELIGIOUS: Our graduates should continuously examine their own religious feelings and beliefs as they choose their path to God and deepen their relationship with a religious tradition and community. They should have a basic foundation in religious education, as well as a personal experience of God in prayer, relationships and worship. They should have an awareness of other religious traditions besides their own, and an ability to explore and validate their faith in a religious diverse world. Finally, they should see their faith as leading to active service of others.
How are those precepts manifest in teaching a six year-old about sexuality? It's age-appropriate of course. The end result should be children who graduate high school with those precepts, but the teaching will naturally start in age-appropriate ways throughout their childhood. For instance, the books they read in school don't solely depict rigid stereotypes, and they model that the reaction to differences should be love and acceptance rather than condemnation. One hilarious book, left available in the school library without being either called out nor banned, "Is he a girl?" where a boy discovers that by kissing his elbow he becomes a girl. Also, when they come with their parents to church and the priest's sermon happens to be about tolerance and acceptance and justice with respect to Pride month or similar, or the school and church are draped with Pride flags, they ask about the topics and we tell them. It's part of bringing them up in an environment where love and respect are ingrained as universal parts of their everyday life.
The phrase "teaching a six year old about sexuality" is a horrible one because it has weaponized ambiguity:
* Giving them graphic depictions of intercourse? -- certainly not age-appropriate
* Including messages of love and respect that include different cultures and lifestyles? -- certainly age-appropriate.
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Good post, cut for brevity.
The phrase "teaching a six year old about sexuality" is a horrible one because it has weaponized ambiguity:
* Giving them graphic depictions of intercourse? -- certainly not age-appropriate
* Including messages of love and respect that include different cultures and lifestyles? -- certainly age-appropriate.
This, but it's all they've got.
It's hard to get worked up about telling a six year old a very high level but easy to understand talk about where babies come from, because that's exactly the kind of question a six year old asks. However if you word it ambiguously enough and then suggest that kids are being show HARD CORE PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL AGAINST THEIR WILL, you'll get all the people who don't check facts in a proper froth. Also when called on it, you can claim "I didn't actually say that" (A.K.A. the
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No, actually the opposite. I've been soaking up your talking points, and comparing them to reality, for going on a quarter of a century.
And you fucks always lie. ALWAYS. And not just a little. You lie as much as it's humanly possible to lie, to make yourselves feel more powerful.
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Russia gate? You mean the conspiracy confirmed by a bi-partisan senate committee that Russia interfered with the election to get Trump elected? Or the confirmed cases of members of the Trump campaign working with Russian agents? Why would someone not believe those?
As the con artist has said (Score:2, Informative)
He loves the poorly educated [snopes.com]. And what better population to test this on than "conservatives".
Define "Misinformation"... (Score:5, Insightful)
From The Article: "The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."
This strikes me as the fundamental flaw in the study: the researchers did not themselves assess the veracity of the information. In essence, the claims seem to hinge entirely on whether Facebook's fact checkers were correct.
Thus, "misinformation" in this case would necessarily be defined as "statements made in contrast to the information acquired by Facebook's fact checkers".
I'm not for a second arguing that plenty of the articles in question were misleading-at-best. I read plenty of those over that time frame...but if the liberal side of Facebook not having an echo chamber may well simply be a symptom of the left half of Facebook trusting the fact-checkers more than the article writers, and the right half of Facebook believing the inverse. As much as this may yield a "well, obviously the right wouldn't believe fact checkers!" response, suppose Elon Musk decided to implement fact checkers on X/Twitter ahead of the 2024 election...do we still trust the fact checkers Musk appoints, or do we believe Musk is off the reservation and that the people he'd allow to fact check are going to be biased at a problematic level?
The bottom line for me is that I was willing to entertain the conclusion this article purports, until I read that the basis of these conclusions was Facebook's assessment of the articles. *That* is the sort of gratuitous oversight that should earn this article a "missing context" flag.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
From The Article: "The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."
This strikes me as the fundamental flaw in the study: the researchers did not themselves assess the veracity of the information. In essence, the claims seem to hinge entirely on whether Facebook's fact checkers were correct.
I haven't actually seen any examples of fact checkers showing a bias. I'm sure there's one if you dig hard enough, but the signal is way too big to write off as biased fact-checkers.
There's a slightly better claim of bias where right-leaning stories are more likely to get fact checked (it's not that the fact checkers are biased, but they're predominantly reviewing one side). But again, I don't think it's a big enough effect.
As much as this may yield a "well, obviously the right wouldn't believe fact checkers!" response, suppose Elon Musk decided to implement fact checkers on X/Twitter ahead of the 2024 election...do we still trust the fact checkers Musk appoints, or do we believe Musk is off the reservation and that the people he'd allow to fact check are going to be biased at a problematic level?
The researchers (and myself) trust the FB fact checkers because they're 3rd parties
Re:Define "Misinformation"... (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to nitpick the studies, or at least what the summary says about the studies, I would nitpick about how they're using the word "conservative."
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No one has ever claimed that fact checkers are infallible. The only thing that I have claimed is that yo
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You are using your examples as an excuse to dismiss the best way you have to determine what reality is.
And of course it's anecdote. And yes they're also example
A fact is (Score:5, Insightful)
Misinformation is false information specifically designed to cause someone to disbelieve that single conclusion, usually for political or sales purposes.
We absolutely know what the concept of misinformation is. You're subject line was specifically intended to make us question if it's even possible to recognize misinformation. It is, itself, a bit of misinformation. e.g. you're spreading the idea that there is no such thing as "facts" and that all information is relative. Whether you know it or not this is not an accident. I have seen dozens of posts like yours that start the same way, as well as entire articles. They most commonly come from conservative outlets.
As for Meta's third party fact checking apparatus, regardless of the quality it's still a fact checking apparatus. While it's debatable if there are some false positives, it would have been applied to both left and right wing posters. You're not arguing that it's partisan, you're arguing it's quality might be lower, but even if it was (e.g. more or less false positives) that would all come out in the wash because we're comparing relative amounts across a huge data set.
So unless there as a *massive* pro-left wing bias in the meta fact checker the study's results are still accurate. And, well, if that was the case right wing pundits and their multi-billion dollar media machine wouldn't shut up about it. They'd have evidence (i.e. those "facts" again) and there'd be all sorts of Congressional hearings.
In fact there were Senate Congressional hearings by one of the GOP led Congresses. It was a big nothingburger.
Sorry but like it or not, the study is true. The right wing gets orders of magnitude more lies spewed at them and allows it to happen. If you don't like being lied to, you shouldn't be consuming right wing media. Fox News themselves admitted they're not a News network, they're just "entertainment". It's how they got out of all the regulations that normally apply to public news outlets.
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Riight, it's the fact-checkers who are wrong, even though there's not a shred of evidence of this.
And the sources claiming Trump won are factual?
You sound like the Church of Scientology.
This has been known since 2016 (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch an hour of Fox News primetime and it's pretty clear the right wing has given up on the truth if you're being at all objective. And Fox is the least of there of the three or four 24 hour right wing "News" networks.
I think a lot of people know that. I've called some of my friends out on it and they laugh it off because "it's just entertainment". Still, if you were to go hang out with a cult long enough I think you'd start believing it whether you were just there for the parties or not. There's a reason scientology keeps the really crazy stuff behind a long paywall
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If you dig around you can fun an interview with one of the guys running an early fake news site. He was pretty up front about it just being a business and that he used it for ad revenue. They asked him why he didn't do left wing fake news and the answer was it got debunked too fast to go viral and generate a profit.
All this tells us is that the "left" is less susceptible to disinformation, better able to retain facts and cross check. Also has less tolerance for BS.
I use the word "left" ironically as most people defined as "left" will be centre right, if not moderately right. Calling them "left" is a defence mechanism by the far right to prevent admitting that they're on the extreme.
When it comes to believing fake news, disinformation or just plain old BS, it's less to do if you're left or right and more to do w
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Amazing that only half the left believes most of those true things. I wonder if it's right wing misinformation is confusing them or they're just not aware of them or what?
Re: This has been known since 2016 (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really interesting rhetorical strategy you took. Really, this is first rate trolling. This is a textbook case of making a bad faith argument. You must be really proud of yourself.
It should be noted how c7gunner took some facts and twisted them. He attributes them to beliefs of "half the left," thus hedging against anyone "on the left" who may say, "I consider myself very liberal but do not believe that thing."
Next let's take a look at his four strawmen. Notice that I've stepped into the trap by doing this because the whole point of this bad faith argument is to get mired in the hodgepodge of bullshit details and lose sight of the original argument posited by rsilvergun. I'll tread carefully.
Trump colluded with Russia
We know this one could be debated endlessly. That's probably why he starts with it. It's pure bait to derail the conversation.
Treyvon Martin had his hands up
He's intentionally conflating two different stories, hoping to get someone to post a reply that will provide an easy "gotcha."
Kyle Rittenhouse shot 3 black men
Again changing a detail hoping to bait someone into that "gotcha" moment.
that there was an insurrection on January the 6th
Oops, went a little too crazy with this one. But he was hoping that someone would slip up on points 2 & 3, thus providing the opportunity to say, "Ha! look at this idiot! He doesn't have his facts straight about 2 & 3, thus he's obviously wrong about this whole insurrection thing!"
Just think about how pathetic this person is. Think how much time he spends thinking of ways he can "own the libs" on Slashdot. That will really show the world. He thinks his cute little sophistry can win an argument and that's all that matters. The truth doesn't matter. That's just an obstacle to be overcome.
Think how invested this individual must be in his cognitive dissonance. Why? Well, let's go back to the OP:
Still, if you were to go hang out with a cult long enough I think you'd start believing it whether you were just there for the parties or not.
I think a nerve was struck.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember that story. Here [npr.org].
Crazy (Score:2)
Define "misinformation", and which side paid? (Score:3)
The misinformation was targeted at certain people. The same people who wanted to see it. Whose fault is that?
And it wasn't created or paid for by the opposing camp, but by people who wanted to trick others into joining their side. Who is at fault there?
And does it matter which side had the most people trying to trick them? Maybe... but stop creating a lie for your readers in the first SENTENCE by stating a skewed part of the facts. "Technically true" is something you should avoid where possible, unless you want to be performing the same societal disservice as you're pointing out (lies to people to get them to your side).
third-party fact-checking program (Score:2)
>"...news stories rated false by Metaâ(TM)s third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news."
Ah! The Ministry of Truth! That certainly proves what was or was not "misinformation." Great study, there. I am sure we can all rest easy, now knowing so much of that "misinformation" and "unreliable news" turned out to be true.
Why is this any surprise? (Score:2)
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Russia and China target everyone in the US. The best way to weaken the US is to pit us against each other. They could care less which party runs the country. They want us divided.
And they're succeeding because of people like you. You don't care about anything except attacking the the tribe. If someone points out a real problem in your camp, your response is BUT TEH LIBRUHLS.
Quelle surprise (Score:3)
It's wrong to call the GOP "conservative". It has abandoned any pretense of sticking to conservative roots and has become a radical fascist cult of personality, a conspiracy theory echo chamber, and a refuge for haters of anyone who is different.
The GOP needs to either reform itself or be dismantled and replaced with an actual moderate conservative party.
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Can anyone think of a big story that was considered to be false until very recently despite being 100% correct?
Nope. It was never considered false (though the chain of custody was questionable), nor were the claims 100% correct (various news outlets have gone over its contents and didn't find evidence implicating President Biden).
It's just Hilary's emails again (Score:4, Interesting)
Watching "sleepy Joe" run rings around the Republican party during the debt ceiling crisis they create everything there's a democrat in the White House (and whick mysteriously goes away when a Republican's got his ass in the oval office seat) really showed how weak the GOP bench is. They let the inmates run the asylum it seems.
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Although strangely that's not what sunk Donald Trump's fortunes. The January 6th insurrection and riots have spooked the independent voters and virtually guaranteed Trump can't win a second term.
On the other hand the evangelicals
You are completely wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
Several dozen former IC executives signed a letter [politico.com] denouncing the laptop as having all of the signs of being Russian disinformation.
How would they know? None of them, to my knowledge, were still in government at the time. Even if they had clearances, they didn't have Need to Know for that specific intelligence/investigative program. They weren't read into it, they weren't part of it. The whole point of that letter was to impeach the credibility of the laptop using a naked Appeal to Authority.
Well now we know beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Hunter Biden's laptop, and "the Big Guy" is Joe Biden.
It's hard to tell whether you are a typical low attention span online political hack who can't keep up with this or deliberately spreading misinformation.
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It definitely has all the feel of something planted by the Russians. There's still no evidence it was Hunter's laptop and not a laptop with Hunter's data planted on it.
The worst part is that even if the ridiculous story of it appearing there all worked out to be true - there's still nothing of interest. Hunter isn't Joe and him arranging a meeting with his dad (then a private citizen) wouldn't even have been illegal. It's basically just the right trying to generate another "Buttery Males" scenario, just
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Can anyone think of a big story that was considered to be false until very recently despite being 100% correct?
Nope. It was never considered false...
Doesn't really matter if the censorship is strong enough. And it certainly was.
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Or responsible journalism. It was an unconfirmed story with dubious sources. By now, portions have been confirmed, but still a lot is in question.
It's sort of like if there was a dossier of dirt on Trump in 2016, it would have been irresponsible for new agencies to report on it leading up to the election. Even if much of it turned out to be true later, the responsible thing at the time was still to hold back until it could be verified.
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The sources at the time were: members of the Trump election team citing a Trump supporter that didn't actually see Hunter and had no evidence it was him. It doesn't matter if you name a source if they're not credible.
As I said, by now much of it has been confirmed, but the story of how it got there has had no new developments and there still aren't any substantial crimes (Hunter did some drugs and had sex with hookers - whoop-dee-doo).
No one seriously cares about this case, it's just a political gamble the
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That entire dossier has been proven to be false and made up
Which parts have been proven false? Do you have any source on that?
And it was published prior to the election
Buzzfeed published it in Jan 2017. The US presidential election was in Nov 2016. It makes no sense the Clinton campaign would push it after the had already conceded the election.
I guess this is just an example of someone who follows a little too much right-wing propaganda without checking basics like dates
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Hunter doesn't work for the government. I'd like to see all of congress drug tested.
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He filmed himself weighing crack
Yes, and he's being charged with drug offences.
how can you say there isn't any evidence
Please show the evidence for a crime he hasn't been charged with.
tip of the ice berg of damning text's and emails
If you can find any that a court would consider to be criminal activity, by all means, go ahead and charge him with that. He should be held accountable for his actions, like anyone else.
But until it's taken to a court, don't expect anyone else to take you seriously. Put up, or shut up.
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No evidence. Just FBI reports, whistleblowers, the DOJ colluding with Biden's lawyers attempting to hide complete immunity from any crimes possibly mentioned in the pretrial diversion agreement until called on it by the judge. But no... no evidence at all.
The opposite, actually. Hunter Biden believed that the immunity agreement was broader than it actually was, and when the judge asked about it, he was surprised by the DOJ's answer.
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Bullshit. When called on it like a naughty dog that piddled on the carpet, the DOJ backpedaled. But the wording of the agreement damn sure guarantees immunity from prosecution for ANY things discussed in Attachment A and Exhibit 1, which for damned sure includes ALL of his FARA violations and any accusations of bribery regarding the same transactions and all his shell companies.
Your claims disagree with what lawyers on both sides said by the end of the proceedings, so I'm going to go with a really big "citation needed" here.
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Ten percent for the big guy? Claims of him being made to pay bills for his father out of his business dealings. You can claim it's not proof but its pretty obvious there was evidence of purchasing influence.
What influence? That business negotiation was in May of 2017, which was AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE. And he also didn't end up going through with the transaction, either.
As for claims, anybody can claim anything. That doesn't make it true.
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>>As for claims, anybody can claim anything. That doesn't make it true.
That is exactly how I feel about the informant's claims against Biden
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Re:Hunter's laptop (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm more upset about Hunter's second amendment rights being infringed upon. Nothing about the second amendment says you can't snort blow and own a handgun. Why isn't that a bigger deal?
By "some things" (Score:3)
Seriously, conservatives need to stop making Hunter Biden look cool. They keep this up he'll be our next president in 2028.
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At no point in that NYPost story does Hunter Biden admit that the laptop was his. The letter from his attorney says the *data* was accessed unlawfully, which is a very different thing.
Unsurprisingly, the Post's headline is a lie. But thank you for doing your part to demonstrate how misinformation works, albeit unintentionally.
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His lawyers have asked for his laptop to be returned.
Citation needed. I haven't been able to find anything that supports this claim.
How can they claim the data was accessed unlawfully if they're not representing the owner of such data.
They are not denying that that some of the data was his. But that's not the same thing as admitting that the laptop is his, or that all of the data on the laptop is his.
wanting to know just how corrupt Biden
If you have actual proof about Joe Biden being involved in any corrup
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You really believe that, don't you? Unbelievable...
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Can anyone think of a big story that was considered to be false until very recently despite being 100% correct?
It wasn't considered false.
But it was considered extremely sketchy at the time, and frankly it still is.
Hunter Biden happens to abandon his laptop at the repair shop of a legally blind repairman who supposedly can't figure out how to get a hold of Hunter Biden, but is able to get a hold of Rudy Giuliani.
It's possible that happened, it's also possible someone stole and even tampered with the laptop [wikipedia.org] before setting things in motion.
And yes, social media services overreacted in trying to not be part of a disinf
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COVID origins? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I might have thought the origins of the most lethal pandemic in 100 years might have made that list. COVID is now considered by the FBI as reasonably likely to have escaped the Wuhan lab. That was a topic roundly assessed by the academic community and mainstream media as a "conspiracy theory" during the 2020 election cycle and through 2022 and into 2023. I would suspect that topic - one that I suspect drove a lot of traffic - was suppressed as disinformation on Facebook at the time the data for this study seems to have been collected. You would think they would at LEAST remove COVID origin "disinformation" from the study, since that "disinformation" proved to be likely correct, or at least consider the impact of inaccurate fact checking on the results.
Sigh, This is the ideal example of disinformation and how it spreads. A post that claims to be authorative but offers no evidence, let alone extraordinary evidence to back up an extraordinary claim, then launches into "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong".
It's also a good example of "lying by omission".
FBI director Christopher Wray did say "most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab", however almost all experts on the subject disagree with him, I notice this bit was left out by
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When you say MSM, who are you speaking of? Because Fox is by far the number one cable news outlet. https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
Guess what that makes Fox.
Re: This is not even news. (Score:2)
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Lots of people believe that.
Lots of people believe other people believe that. Not the same thing.
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And to the point, people with ovaries can get pregnant. I've never met anyone who thinks otherwise on the left or right. Believing somewhere some people do makes for a good bogeyman though.
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He was considered a bit of a joke candidate in 1979.
I can remember my Mother laughing and shaking her head when he won re-election.
My own view is that Reagan should have ended his days in prison but America doesn't punish it's ruling class.
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Re: Liberal researchers biased towards liberals.. (Score:2)
Re: enough said (Score:3)
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Sounds an awful lot like Joe Biden. The man that just claimed to have cured cancer. The man that had to drop out of a prior Presidential run for plagiarism. The documented lies and stolen stories from Biden over his entire career is well documented. He repeats the same lies over and over again even when friendly media points out it's a bald faced lie. The man doesn't know what is true and what is not. He says whatever he thinks he needs to to get votes. He lacks any sort of moral compass. He's a car
Re: Source of truth (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thought I am conservative, I do agree with your characterization of Biden's and Trump's motivations.
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Conservatives might have gotten some misinformation from facebook
Also Fox Entertainment.
Er what was your point again?
Oh yeah: we're in the shit and should never try to improve anything about ourselves when we can take a jab at the other tribe, that was it, right?