My Cousin, who is both a vocal supporter of the protesters/rioters here in town as well as someone who is trying to gentrify South Minneapolis, posted the following on her social media this morning.
"Normalize changing your opinion when presented with new information."
This is one of those things that sounds great when you first read it, but also rings a little wrong.
What is being communicated is that all "information" is equally valid and equally worthy of changing one's opinion.
Clearly the premise that information shouldn't be vetted or researched for accuracy seems flawed.
What I will say is that when I see people who share bad/false information to try to persuade others to agree with the narrative they are promoting, I definitely change my opinion of them. If your narrative is so fragile that it needs false information to survive that my respect for you will drop significantly.
13 comments:
Sadly, there is too much misinformation out there. And sadly, much research says that it's being passed on by older conservative types of people. You would hope that with age would come some wisdom.
Anecdotally on Facebook, I see something like 10 to 20 objectively false stories being passed on by conservative friends and family to every one that gets passed on by my liberal friends and family.
And sadder still, even when I point out the false stories to my conservative friends, more often than not, they leave the post up.
So yes, all people should change when they have newer and better information. And given that it appears to be a greater problem with conservatives, they need to especially be open to change, recognizing their tendency to pass on fake news.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/9F687392-14D9-11E9-A12D-337519A9EE80
Really? You claim "much research" and offer anecdotes from your FB page.
Let's take two higher profile examples.
The 1619 Project has been significantly criticized by historians for presenting an inaccurate view of history.
The 13th documentary has had significant questions raised regarding that accuracy of the "evidence" they offered as "proof" of their theory.
Your continued insistence that this is a one sided thing is simply more partisan prejudice and bias from you.
The point of my post, which you seem to agree with in that equivocal nonspecific way you have, is that information is of zero value if it's inaccurate. That you need to make that partisan speaks volumes and makes one wonder if you scrutinize information from your own as harshly as you do those you disagree with.
I do agree with the point of your post. I am saying that conservatives have a problem with it, especially older conservatives. And I posted a link to one of the studies, but there are others out there.
Also, I don't think my anecdotal stories are invalid. Just the sheer volume false stories after false stories after false stories after false stories from older conservative people it's hard to ignore. Also nine out of 10 times when I point out it's a false story, the story remains. But when I point out false stories to my liberal friends, they nearly always acknowledged the mistake and or remove the post. I hear this from other progressives as well. And what we all see in abundance is validated by the research.
"Most Facebook users did not share any fake news articles during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, according to a recent study but the small number who did were mostly Republican Americans over the age of 65. The findings suggest the need for “renewed attention” to educate “particular vulnerable individuals,” such as aging baby boomers, about fake news or misleading information that appears to resemble a fact-checked news article published by a legitimate and fact-based media outlet, researchers said."
I always enjoy it when you post links that don't support your claims.
The story is pretty clear that the problem isn't a bunch of conservatives out to post fake news to advance an agenda, it's a small number of older people who aren't particularly internet savvy.
Excellent job impugning older people.
"a recent study"
Just a simple grammar note. The word "a" designates something singular. In other words, the article links to one study, not "much research".
In addition, it's a study of behavior from the 2016 presidential campaign (in other words, 4-6 years ago) not exactly cutting edge research.
"Also, I don't think my anecdotal stories are invalid."
Since you always demand "hard data" etc from others, yet offer anecdotes for yourself. It's not so much about your anecdotes being invalid, as about your double standards when it comes to other peoples anecdotes.
It also doesn't factor in the lack of a representative sample size on your FB feed. It's entirely likely, based on your anecdotes about your upbringing, that your FE feed is disproportionately populated by people from your younger days, and over represents this tiny percentage identified by your study.
One wonders why, if you agreed with the post, you felt compelled to turn a simple agreement into an attack on your political enemies.
Why am I opposed to the false news narrative that Trump and his little trollish followers are engaged in? Because it's harmful. The Pervert and con man Trump is in power largely because such a large percentage of conservative adults buy into Trump style false narratives.
Stupidly false claims like the ones Trump regularly makes and the ones conservatives believe, as well as the conspiracy theories that so many conservatives believe, are harmful. And so it's an important point to speak out against the false claims being put out there largely by conservatives like the idiot pervert, Trump and his conservative minority that put them in power.
I have to note that in your desire to malign the elderly, you ignored the two items that I noted that were shared multiple times by those on the left. I understand.
The problem is that you focus on the "false narrative" that "Trump and his trollish followers" are engaged in.
There are two problems with this.
1. The study you cite doesn't support your claim that this is an intentional effort by Trumps followers. It's quite clear that it's the elderly who are not as internet savvy and more likely to be fooled than younger people.
2. The fact that you are only concerned about the "Trump followers" false narrative as opposed to false narratives in general.
Your problem is that you can't/won't apply the same standards across the board.
It's pretty simple.
Information that is accurate and True, is good and helpful. Information that is inaccurate and false, is bad an not helpful. No matter which side it comes from.
Another example.
My Twitter feed is absolutely flooded with people who insist that Rayshard Brooks was "asleep in a Wendy's parking lot" when he was shot for absolutely no reason. They aren't interested in the fact that he was passed out in the drive through lane. Yet somehow those folks, the NYT, and the makers of 13th, don't get the same level of scrutiny as a bunch of gullible elderly people.
The difference between us in this issue, is that I've called Trump out for years because of the fact that he lies. I wrote a post on it during the 2016 campaign and have consistently criticized him for lying since. I have no problem calling out "my side" when they lie. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that same even handedness from you.
I'm sure you'll claim that you did something, at some point in the past that gives you some degree of cover on this, but unless you can provide a quote and a link, it's just more meaningless self protective BS.
It's hilarious that Dan continues to act as if false info comes from one side as opposed the other with some level of routine frequency. While complete accuracy has never been one of Trump's strong suits, his inaccuracies are rarely of a level that causes any legitimate harm that liars like Dan has ever been able to point out. In the meantime, the lies about Trump are easy to identify and the harm they cause is substantial. Look at how many people insist Trump is a racist because people like Dan continue to perpetuate lies such as Trump's actual words regarding the Charlottesville incident being distorted to make it seem he said "some white supremacists" are good people. Look at how they purposely omitted he was talking about MS13 gang members when his opponents claimed he called immigrants "animals". And of course today we have the support from people like Dan for the BLM organization, which lies about their purpose.
It would not surprise me to find out that those conservatives Dan thinks are willing to let false info stand on their social media pages are really posting true stuff that Dan's false contradictory info can't really disprove. Given Dan's well known history for buying into any lame study or research that supports his twisted ideology, that's likely the real story.
According to the one study he offered the posters were old people who had difficulty checking the veracity of the things they post. I suspect we all know people who post stuff that isn’t accurate and wonder what they’re thinking.
I think that my feed is more bs from lefties might have something to do with the fact that the majority of my friends and family are leftist.
I've often questioned the legitimacy of postings that don't seem to me to be legitimate. I'll ask the poster if he verified the story. I think some post what is only true conceptually or theoretically, though the actual details can't be verified. I've even posted something about which I wasn't sure or hadn't the time to verify, but said I couldn't confirm it in the post. In these cases, I state words to the effect "I don't know if this is true, but if it is..." and then add my opinion. Even untrue memes can be useful as examples of some point with which I agree or disagree, but I feel obliged to make the distinction. In such cases, the point is the important thing, but without the caveat it's just a lie.
I've taken to verifying things that seem too appropriate.
for instance, there is a legitimate article about a gay, black, activist in Baltimore saying that they want more police in their community. Everything was accurate, but it was from 2017, so I didn't use it.
The reality is that older folks just aren't as savvy and don't heck things out. But that doesn't make them evil, nor does it represent everyone else accurately.
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