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Mr. Bojangles
Breathe In
Registered: 04/08/08
Posts: 1,937
Loc: The Dirty
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'Fake News' outpaces real news in virtually all metrics on Twitter
#25053421 - 03/09/18 10:56 PM (6 years, 20 days ago) |
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https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news-mit-twitter/555104/
I knew fake news was a problem, and this is only an analysis of Twitter, but it still seems quite ominous. Misinformation campaigns are not a new phenomena but the way misinformation seems to spread, at least on Twitter, is an order of magnitude larger than truth.
Quote:
It is unclear which interventions, if any, could reverse this tendency toward falsehood. “We don’t know enough to say what works and what doesn’t,” Aral told me. There is little evidence that people change their opinion because they see a fact-checking site reject one of their beliefs, for instance. Labeling fake news as such, on a social network or search engine, may do little to deter it as well.
In short, social media seems to systematically amplify falsehood at the expense of the truth, and no one—neither experts nor politicians nor tech companies—knows how to reverse that trend. It is a dangerous moment for any system of government premised on a common public reality.
Is this a solid prediction of the future or bordering on hyperbolic?
-------------------- "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." Francois-Marie Arouet
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Kryptos
Stranger
Registered: 11/01/14
Posts: 12,568
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Re: 'Fake News' outpaces real news in virtually all metrics on Twitter [Re: Mr. Bojangles]
#25059620 - 03/13/18 02:14 AM (6 years, 17 days ago) |
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I think this has been, and always will be, true. The article starts off with the quote:
“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it”
which was written nearly three centuries ago.
Social media simply amplifies this by putting an audience at your fingertips instead of making you go out and find a soapbox to stand on.
Personally, I think it has to do with the fakeness of the news itself. Fake news is pretty much universally sensational, while the truth is almost always boring. That's why we've been reading about how science has discovered Harry Potter style invisibility cloaks for over a decade, but I still can't turn invisible (and I'm a scientist!). Sure, there are some optical tricks that work in very specific circumstances, and even some cool nanomaterials that work in very specific circumstances, but still no invisibility cloak.
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My Shrooms
Stranger
Registered: 02/14/18
Posts: 11
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Re: 'Fake News' outpaces real news in virtually all metrics on Twitter [Re: Kryptos]
#25070100 - 03/17/18 01:41 AM (6 years, 13 days ago) |
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It's not a truth / lie issue IMO, more of a interesting/not interesting issue.
Every company that makes money is ALL ABOUT making money, and sensationalist news get those clicks.
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DoctorJ
Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: 'Fake News' outpaces real news in virtually all metrics on Twitter [Re: My Shrooms]
#25071608 - 03/17/18 06:04 PM (6 years, 12 days ago) |
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That's probably at least partially because fake news is bot-hyped, just to create a false sense of consensus to any actual person dumb enough to rationalize believing it on the basis of its 'popularity' alone.
Edited by DoctorJ (03/17/18 06:14 PM)
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