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Fake News and social media

The Thriller

The Thriller

Well-Known Member
I've been thinking about this for a while. Social media is exploiting on polarization in America to further divide us. By exploiting the confirmation bias of others, social media platforms, advertisers, and fake news publishers make more money.

This article by the post is so very interesting. Read it first and tell me what y’all think.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...d44cc8-e85a-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html

The Internet was supposed to bring us together and make us better informed with so much information available through a few clicks. Yet, in many ways it’s dividiing us and making us much dumber.

What can be done to reincorporate isolated Americans brainwashed into a fake news fantasy back into the 21st century reality? How can social media platforms combat fake news if their very survival depends on clicks and likes? As a society, how can we better educate people to develop critical thinking skills to recognize obvious satire and fake news and not mistake them for being real?
 
Stupidity reigns supreme. It's a sad state of affairs. I sure don't have the answers to how we overcome all this. Post Truth, fake news, the inability of people to use a discriminating intellect to weed out nonsense. People like Hannity taking advantage of pervasive stupidity, to help it grow even more pervasive. Maybe the internet is actually the worse thing that could possibly have happened. The Russians weaponized it, and used it to hurt us, to damage our institutions. A president who somehow has normalized stupidity at the top. A nation led by a troll, adulated by millions of trolls. That's one consequence I did not see coming where the internet was concerned. The pervasive spread of trolls, and the enjoyment of cruelty by trolls, led by the Troll in Chief. A nation wide mental illness.
 
The Thriller said:
The Internet was supposed to bring us together and make us better informed with so much information available through a few clicks. Yet, in many ways it’s dividiing us and making us much dumber.
Click to expand...

Here's a mind numbing example of the internet dumbing people down. YouTube leading the way. A combination of the anti-elite sentiments of right wing populism with a new definition of globalism that is stupid to the nth degree.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/insid...-worlds-oldest-conspiracy-theory-is-hot-again

"DENVER—“In five years, everyone will know the Earth is flat,” Scott Simons tells me as we wait in line for the second annual Flat Earth Conference.

Scott, holding the Utah license plate “ITSFLAT,” is explaining how the Flat Earth revolution will bring “societal collapse” because the bulk of our knowledge comes from Round Earth institutions.

“It’s globalism,” his wife Julie interjects. The term, a favorite of President Donald Trump, has become an anti-Semitic euphemism, attached to a far-right conspiracy about Jews controlling the world. I make what must be a funny face, because Julie tries to clarify.
“Globalism,” she repeats, and draws a circle with her hands to illustrate.

Ah. Globe. Yes.

Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who believe in a flat Earth have become a movement. They’ve found their voice in the disinformation age, fueled by YouTube videos. For true believers, it’s more than just a conspiracy theory. It’s whole world view, a level plane onto which hucksters, trolls, and Christian fundamentalists can insert their own ideologies."
 
Red said:
Here's a mind numbing example of the internet dumbing people down. YouTube leading the way. A combination of the anti-elite sentiments of right wing populism with a new definition of globalism that is stupid to the nth degree.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/insid...-worlds-oldest-conspiracy-theory-is-hot-again

"DENVER—“In five years, everyone will know the Earth is flat,” Scott Simons tells me as we wait in line for the second annual Flat Earth Conference.

Scott, holding the Utah license plate “ITSFLAT,” is explaining how the Flat Earth revolution will bring “societal collapse” because the bulk of our knowledge comes from Round Earth institutions.

“It’s globalism,” his wife Julie interjects. The term, a favorite of President Donald Trump, has become an anti-Semitic euphemism, attached to a far-right conspiracy about Jews controlling the world. I make what must be a funny face, because Julie tries to clarify.
“Globalism,” she repeats, and draws a circle with her hands to illustrate.

Ah. Globe. Yes.

Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who believe in a flat Earth have become a movement. They’ve found their voice in the disinformation age, fueled by YouTube videos. For true believers, it’s more than just a conspiracy theory. It’s whole world view, a level plane onto which hucksters, trolls, and Christian fundamentalists can insert their own ideologies."
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Speaking of fake news, you know how the right stokes the fears of middle America with constant coverage of that caravan? Well you know what's even more insignificant, but dominates leftist notions of the boogeyman lurking around the corner? Flat Earthers. Partially due to their smouldering lust for believing that anyone to the right of them is a toothless hillbilly that doesn't know their *** from their face, they can rest at ease knowing that no self-reflection is ever necessary as any argument opposing them is ultimately authored by a class of inbred yokels who don’t wipe their ***.
 
infection said:
Speaking of fake news, you know how the right stokes the fears of middle America with constant coverage of that caravan? Well you know what's even more insignificant, but dominates leftist notions of the boogeyman lurking around the corner? Flat Earthers. Partially due to their smouldering lust for believing that anyone to the right of them is a toothless hillbilly that doesn't know their *** from their face, they can rest at ease knowing that no self-reflection is ever necessary as any argument opposing them is ultimately authored by a class of inbred yokels who don’t wipe their ***.
Click to expand...

And if Flat Earthers ever did become a meaningful percentage of the American public, Donald Trump would court them. Still waiting for him to appoint a science advisor. It will never happen.
 
infection said:
Speaking of fake news, you know how the right stokes the fears of middle America with constant coverage of that caravan? Well you know what's even more insignificant, but dominates leftist notions of the boogeyman lurking around the corner? Flat Earthers.
Click to expand...

Speaking only for myself, I see Flat Earthers as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, while Trump at least seems to think the caravan invasion is a real threat.
 
One Brow said:
Speaking only for myself, I see Flat Earthers as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, while Trump at least seems to think the caravan invasion is a real threat.
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Right, and many on the right see the caravan as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, too, but just as there are many who see it as a literal threat, there are many who also see Flat Earthers as a literal threat. The problem with boogeymen becomes how scary and realistic they appear depends wholly on which side of the aisle they stand.
 
One Brow said:
Speaking only for myself, I see Flat Earthers as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, while Trump at least seems to think the caravan invasion is a real threat.
Click to expand...
Same here. They are a symptom of a growing illiteracy about science and our society's gravitation toward conspiracy theory thinking, but that's about it. I mean, there are policy decisions and racist political ads, and you know, military mobilization at play wrt the right wing's response to the Caravan. Not really at all the case with the left and flat earthers. Seems like a bit of a stretch there @infection.
 
infection said:
Right, and many on the right see the caravan as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, too, but just as there are many who see it as a literal threat, there are many who also see Flat Earthers as a literal threat. The problem with boogeymen becomes how scary and realistic they appear depends wholly on which side of the aisle they stand.
Click to expand...

While I'm sure "many" is true for both, I'm not aware of any Congresspeople or other national political figures on the left who talk about flat earthers. National political figures on the right, including Trump, talk about the dangers of the caravan. It is false to present this as if both sides are doing the same thing.
 
One Brow said:
While I'm sure "many" is true for both, I'm not aware of any Congresspeople or other national political figures on the left who talk about flat earthers. National political figures on the right, including Trump, talk about the dangers of the caravan. It is false to present this as if both sides are doing the same thing.
Click to expand...

Has a president ever dispatched 5,000+ members of the military over Thanksgiving break to guard the border from flat earthers?

There are some tangible differences between flat earthers and this caravan.
 
The point may be that, regardless of how pervasive any one crackpot idea becomes, the Internet and social media incubate these mental firestorms, and they spread across a virtual, and in the case of Flat Earth conventions, real world landscape. They're have always been flakes, and beliefs over on the so-called fringe. It can also be pretty arrogant to call something fringe, but then again, there is often a general consensus in recognizing it. Better to recognize that this is one of the things happening , namely the growth of alternate realities online, that was simply not possible in our world before the existence of cyber space and virtual social communities. This may be a harmless expression of seeking meaning in a confusing world, or it may pose a greater danger. At the least, it's strange. And Donald Trump is one of its heros, one of its products.

Speaking of strange:

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/11/...-spawned-a-truly-weird-new-conspiracy-theory/

Mental firestorms, no pun intended. They are like contagions of the mind. They are a product of our time, and we can judge something about our time from their proliferation. People are easily drawn into these vortices of fantastical thinking, and Trump seems to be especially gifted in harnessing these realms. Of course he's spoken live on Alex Jones, in that respect, it's only to be expected. Any one individual, any one internet hoax may seem harmless, but we are seeing a denizen of that world in the Oval Office. And a proliferation of such thinking across a somewhat significant swath of our society.
 
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The Thriller said:
What can be done to reincorporate isolated Americans brainwashed into a fake news fantasy back into the 21st century reality?
Click to expand...

And this is very much the point once we recognize how much potential damage can result in a democratic society, when significant portions of that society are caught up in illinformed, and misinformed, and politically weaponized bogus realities. It may not convey all that much meaning to talk about an eruption of irrational thought in society, but it is that, and when it gets to incubate and permeate people's personal mental landscapes and beliefscapes, on the internet and in virtual social communities, it allows such thinking to overtake rational thought in general. And by it's very nature increase social divisiveness, as a landscape of "us" and "them" is always one sure result, regardless of the particular belief. Isnt that a danger?

It seems to be the Post Truth landscape. I should think Post Truth would be a landscape that would make social cohesion less easy to obtain within a nation state. And downright riotous in a democratic society and culture.
 
infection said:
Right, and many on the right see the caravan as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, too, but just as there are many who see it as a literal threat, there are many who also see Flat Earthers as a literal threat. The problem with boogeymen becomes how scary and realistic they appear depends wholly on which side of the aisle they stand.
Click to expand...

Potus is different than a few liberals imo.
 
infection said:
Right, and many on the right see the caravan as more of a symbolic representation than any sort of boogeyman, too, but just as there are many who see it as a literal threat, there are many who also see Flat Earthers as a literal threat. The problem with boogeymen becomes how scary and realistic they appear depends wholly on which side of the aisle they stand.
Click to expand...
If some non-GMO anti-vaxxer became President I'd have about the same opinion and reaction to that person that I do of Trump.
 
Well today we all have definitely learned who trumps biggest fan is. A bit of spam in every thread! But he isn't a fan lol.
 
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