We now see newspapers and network news shows RUSHING allegations into print that turn out to be poorly sourced, inadequately fact-checked, and in some cases just PLAIN FALSE. Of course, human error is ever with us. Recall the headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3, 1948, “Dewey defeats Truman.” Oops. But it does appear, of late, that the editors of our news agencies are employing increasingly lax standards. In June 2017, CNN ran several stories, each of which had to be RETRACTED within days. #post-truth #alternativefacts
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

We estimate that 50% or more of Facebook’s current MAUs (monthly active users) are actually FAKE. Facebook has already disclosed that since Q4 2017, as a conservative estimate, it has deleted 2.841 BILLION fake accounts on a network purporting to have 2.271 billion current MAUs, amounting to 55% of all accounts ever created. Whether or not our estimate (only 14.2% higher than what appears to be Facebook’s transparency portal disclosure for Q2 2018) is precisely correct, the proportion of fake accounts will, without question, INCREASE over time, competing for the attention of fewer and fewer actual users. Artificial intelligence cannot solve this problem; at this stage it is simply FAR TOO LATE to put the genie back into the bottle. #socialbots #mistrust
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

The oxford english dictionary has named it´s word of the year for 2016 and it´s "POST-TRUTH", and I am PRE-enraged. First of all, post-truth is not the word of the year, it´s the TWO words of the year. Hyphens ARE FOR THE WEAK. Second, post-truth is clearly a RIPOFF of my 2006 word of the year: TRUTHTHINESS, which according to this other article is defined as "the quality of prefering concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."" NOW, for the record, that´s NOT the definition of truthiness! Where is this article from? NBC? LYYIING NBC... Hey! You wanna know what "truthiness" means? You know who to call! Steven Colbert. TRUTHINESS (NOUN) - THE BELIEF IN WHAT YOU FEEL TO BE TRUE, RATHER THAN WHAT THE FACTS WILL SUPPORT. #masshysteria #truthiness
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

While bogus research costs millions each year, fake-news websites actually GENERATE FUNDS through advertising (Paresh 2016, C1). Further complicating matters, the more outrageous the stories published on the websites, the more viewer clicks they generate; the more viewer clicks the websites generate, the more money the sites’ owners EARN from companies whose products appear in banners and pop-ups. Since fake news receives more viewer interest (measured in “clicks”) than real news, the financial motivation to publish fake news IS GREATER than the financial motivation to publish real news. #make-believe #clickbait
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

In his book The Myth Gap, Alex Evans argues that ‘we need new myths that speak about who we are and the world we inhabit’. It has, of course, become commonplace to use the word ‘myth’ as a synonym for ‘familiar falsehood’. But this is not what Evans is championing. Addressing the specific case of climate change science, he argues that technocratic language, statistics, acronyms and opaque strategy documents can do as much to deter public recognition of reality as to advance it. (...) In other words: the BATTLE between feeling and rationality is, to some extent, a false dichotomy. More than ever, truth REQUIRES an emotional delivery system that speaks to experience, memory and hope. #persuasion #pseudoscience
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

We live in an information-saturated culture and there is NO WAY that we can take it all on TRUST anymore, not when so much fake news is so readily being manufactured by so many alt-right sources—as well as by those in positions of power who share their political outlook and ideological goals. Democracy DEPENDS on us individually exercising as much caution as we are able to in processing what the news outlets are telling us, rather than ALLOWING ourselves to be led by our gut feelings in the manner of the Trump-trusters. That is the LEAST we can do if the threat of demagoguery is to be faced down. #skepticism #realitycheck
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

If you’re reading an article on a website you’ve never heard of before, take a look at the website’s “CONTACT” and “ABOUT US” pages. If the site is meant to be satirical, these pages will typically have a DISCLAIMER. If the site lacks these pages altogether, that’s also a RED FLAG, as most news outlets want their readers to be able to contact them and learn more about them. Still not sure? Do a quick GOOGLE SEARCH of the website–does it have a reputation #misinformation #disinformation
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

Among those who believe in conspiracy theories, we find the special category of those who BLAME the unfairness of competitors (including accusations that they have disseminated fake news) as an alibi to JUSTIFY their own insufficiencies and failures. Thus, a candidate or political party that is defeated at the polls will find it very easy and comforting to explain the defeat by the fact that their opponent POLLUTED the public discourse and the electoral campaign by SPREADING fake news that deceived the public. In fact, this very explanation was frequently used to explain the success of Brexit and Trump’s electoral victory. Even if the possibility that this occurred and played a significant role cannot be discounted, when these arguments are chosen as the main explanation for events that resulted from extremely complex dynamics, they act as a CONVENIENT ALIBI for those who unsuccessfully attempted to prevent those events from happening. #conspiracytheories #gaslighting
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

An INCREASING number of Americans use the social media as their PRIMARY source of information about day-to-day events in the world, a trend, it should be noted, that is in evidence worldwide. #fakenews #fact-checking
28/05/21, 10:10 PM

The negative effects that may be caused by the spread of misinformation within a society ARE NOT a new phenomenon. Even in ancient Greece, Thucydides observed that truth could be used to MANIPULATE public opinion (Garrett, 2011). News that is twisted or made up can be seen in the oldest journalism practices. Moreover, in times of social crises, anxiety, conflict, and transformation, this kind of news INTENSIFIES (Kiernan, 2017). One of the oldest examples of this in the press is the 1835 news article called the “Great Moon Hoax,” which the New York Sun newspaper published, and which claimed that “life was found on the moon” (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017, pp. 214). Just as lying and twisting facts in communication between people is as OLD as rhetoric, large scale propaganda and misinformation are as old as persuasion campaigns using modern mass communication tools. #make-believe #hyperreality
28/05/21, 10:10 PM