Are Republicans already unironically upset that the majority of examples of misinformation are from conservative sources?
I honestly hope that isn’t true, even if left wing sources are harder to find. This is a case where I believe showing ‘both sides’ is necessary. It’s less likely that they will be duped by people on the left, but it is still possible and they need to be aware of that.
I don’t like the idea of having to provide an equal amount of examples from ‘both sides’ when that isn’t matching reality, on an issue specifically affecting one political party more than the other (or maybe we should bring back the fairness doctrine, I don’t know). There are misinformation examples from probably every part of the political spectrum, but they should be exemplified proportionally. Showing the reality, which is that a majority of fake news is generated by conservative sources, is important.
Yeah, I recall someone from the BBC saying something similar when it came to covering Brexit. It would take their producers days to find a credible, coherent voice that was pro-Brexit, while the anti-Brexit folks were basically lined up to voice their reasoning. That dichotomy was never revealed to listeners and caused some strife amongst the news team as it seemed disingenuous to present both sides as equal
as it seemed disingenuous to present both sides as equal
Because it is.
and it serves no purpose but to minimize right wing political terrorism.
It shouldn’t be about who is doing it more, it should be about how to recognize propaganda. Propaganda can come from any side of the political spectrum. Saying “they do it more” doesn’t help when just trying to teach the basics.
It isn’t about who is doing it more, it’s about giving examples. Those examples have to come from somewhere, and if you aren’t cherrypicking…those examples are going to skew in one direction, which is the original complaint I was anticipating.
Literally any political messaging is propaganda, be it fake or true.
But propaganda and fake news are different things. Propaganda can be made up but it doesn’t have to be, it can be (and frequently is) entirely truthful. If there’s a class on spotting fake news, and it’s any good, it will note that distinction.
Sounds like some pro-propaganda propaganda to me.
The issue with not having this be “both sides” is some people won’t learn from it if they feel targeted. However, those are also the people who need it most. They need to learn to recognize bad media, and then when they actually go to apply it they’ll realize how bad most of the stuff on the right is.
The problem is that we’ve gotten so far from the middle that it’s going to take a generation to wrangle it (reasonable intellectual debate) back. If you’re giving equal opportunity to both sides, you’ll need time for lengthy debates to resolve in an acceptably neutral manner.
The “truth” used to be within arm’s reach. Reasonable discussion could be had from either side of an issue. Today, you’ve got two parties (regardless of politics) who appear to maybe be commenting on the same topic but it’s like they’re on different planets now. Few people, including you and I right this moment, take enough time to engage in the original conversation and instead inject their narrative into something unrelated.
The internet has allowed everyone with an opinion to barf it all over the place while their lemmings lick it up and regurgitate the same cold greasy pizza. This (literally, this comment) distracts from the topic at hand and diverts people to engage in things that infrequently mean anything at all.
This really comes down to responsible journalism. It seems to me that responsible journalism, and “equal time for both sides”, can’t proliferate in a world driven by hits of dopamine on social media. What schools should be teaching is how to avoid addiction, how to strengthen your attention span, how to find the time and the value in reading long form articles, and how to deeply decipher propaganda.
Edit: in related news… “ Americans flock to TikTok for news ” https://www.axios.com/2023/11/15/tiktok-social-media-news-source-us-data
The share of TikTok users who consume news through the platform has nearly doubled since 2020, according to new Pew Research Center data.
Why it matters: News organizations, business leaders and brands are being forced to evolve and meet audiences where they are in order to break through.
What’s happening: The Pew study shows that news consumers have accelerated their shift toward digital channels in the past year.
Americans are roughly twice as likely to say they prefer getting news on digital devices (58%) than television (27%). Meanwhile, audience preference for radio and print media remains roughly stagnant at 6% and 5% respectively.
State of play: Roughly half of Americans say they get some news from social media platforms.
News audiences are increasing the most on TikTok and Instagram. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitch and Nextdoor are also gaining traction as news sources.
Yeah the fairness doctrine would help
It exists. Just show the kids dumb tankie stuff and let them deconstruct it.
It doesn’t answer your question completely, but apparently conservatives are more likley to belive fake news.
Here is a quote from a study with a lot of links to related works.
In particular, Grinberg, Joseph, Friedland, Swire-Thompson, and Lazer [[42], p. 374] found that “individuals most likely to engage with fake news sources were conservative leaning.” Indeed, political bias can be a more important predictor of fake news believability than conspiracy mentality [43] despite conspirational predispositions playing a key role in motivated reasoning [44]. Perhaps because of this, an important body of research has examined whether conservatism influences fake news believability [45,46]. Tellingly, Robertson, Mourão, and Thorson [47] found that in the US liberal news consumers were more aware and amenable to fact-checking sites, whereas conservatives saw them as less positive as well as less useful to them, which might be why conservative SM users are more likely to confuse bots with humans, while liberal SM users tend to confuse humans with bots [48]. In particular, those who may arguably belong to the loud, populist and extremist minority wherein “1% of individuals accounted for 80% of fake news source exposures, and 0.1% accounted for nearly 80% of fake news sources shared” ([42], p. 374).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378720622001537#bib0045
This is an example of something to be careful with. Reading random studies you find on news sites that are outside your area of expertise is an easy way to be led to believe something based only on parts of the truth.
In this case, as in many, we have to rein in our judgments for what the study indicates. Just because it says it found A doesn’t mean B is true.
Reading random studies
I searched for related studies and found this one relevant. That is not random.
you find on news sites
It’s from a scientific journal tough, not a new site?
that are outside your area of expertise
While true, this is not a study about biology or medicine. It’s not hard to understand for lay people.
an easy way to be led to believe something based only on parts of the truth.
That’s why you read more then one study. You know, like I specifically called out that this one links to a lot of related work?
In this case, as in many, we have to rein in our judgments for what the study indicates
It indicates that republicans are more likley to belive fake news.
Just because it says it found A doesn’t mean B is true.
Yes, but nobody did that here? I’m confused what you are getting at.
TLDR: check your ego, it’s not about you. you apply media literacy to my comment instead of the article you shared, but maybe there’s something else going on. stop trying to protect your ego and just recognize the “good points”. any pissed off tone you get from me in this message is just me flabbergasted that you responded so defensively. we’re cool otherwise.
and to be clear, I think conservatives ARE fucking morons, but that prejudice is exactly why this kind of study is the perfect example of when we need media literacy.
It’s from a scientific journal tough, not a new site?
I didn’t say YOU found it in a news site. but these kinds of studies always pop up on Science subreddits. someone posting any study with little to no context is where manipulation begins.
While true, this is not a study about biology or medicine. It’s not hard to understand for lay people.
Overconfidence is the FUCKING HEART of this issue. You dont know what you dont know, but you want to think you do. That’s true for all of us. Have you ever had to review a study’s methodology in grad school? Do you know what resources to check to determine if a study is adequately peer reviewed, and by whom? if someone says No to these, there’s a bigger risk of manipulation. There’s always more to learn.
That’s why you read more then one study.
YOU ONLY LINKED ONE. How many people here are going to go through finding evidence to the contrary when this supports their bias already?? Maybe a few but not a lot! Telling people to read more is great, BUT DID YOU? How many others reading this even clicked your link, let alone the follow ups? Id be shocked if it’s more than a couple of people. We make the conclusions we want to make.
Just because it says it found A doesn’t mean B is true.
Yes, but nobody did that here? I’m confused what you are getting at.
I understand that. I’m not saying anyone did do that. I’m saying it’s a risk. Yes, conservatives might believe more fake news. But the study cannot tell us why that is, only that it is. People love to fill in the gaps.
Fuck me, it’s a comment on social media, not a grad school dissertation. If you want to discuss this in the detail that you want, make you’re own post. For now, in this context, this is perfectly fine and illustrates the point that the original op was trying to make. This horseshit you’re adding to just strengthens their comments rather than weaken it like you want to do.
So just to be clear, you’re saying it’s media literate to just go by a random study someone linked in a comment section with barely any context? And that that comment is even more media literate because someone says the comment has potential for decreasing media literacy rather than increasing it?
Your comment is actually another great opportunity for readers to practice skepticism and media literacy, thank you.
Daily KOS has entered the chat
Daily Kos?
What are their viewership numbers?
Are they among the highest rated news shows?
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The amount of people who view propaganda is irrelevant?
I’d say it would be one if the most important things.
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Daily Kos?
What are their viewership numbers?
Are they among the highest rated news shows?
This is all highly relevant to the conversation. I’m not 100% familiar with them which means they probably are a fringe site and would be easy to ignore. If they get 10k hits a month on their webpage it’s much different then something like Fox getting millions of hits and being on the highest rated new shows multiple times.
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Credibility works in mysterious ways
I don’t like the headline description of this because I really hate the term “fake news”, given who originated it (or at least who popularized it). Reading the article though, CA seems to refer to it as “media literacy”, which seems more apt, that or “critical thinking skills” would be so much better. Just anything other than the term “fake news”.
Can we call the skills “media literacy” and “critical thinking”… and call fake news what it is: propaganda?
the bits and pieces required to recognize ‘fake news’ should already be a part of a required curriculum at a public high school; and i do remember some exercises in one class in particular that compared tabloids to mainstream newspapers. this was in the 1980s, in a fairly progressive part of minnesota.
Silly boy, education is the secondary purpose to school for conservatives. The primary purpose is to create obedient worker drones that do what they’re told.
Critical thinking skills are always antithetical to that.
A lot of shit was fucked up by standardized testing and what not. Not bashing the concept just its current implementation. So this is probably one of the easier ways to do this.
He didn’t originate that term. He claims that he did and he appropriated it, but it was in existence long before he started using it.
it was in existence long before he started using it.
Notably, in late 30s Germany by a pretty infamous man.
In the modern context (2010s), it came into use to describe articles from organizations that called themselves news outlets literally making up fake stories. The right co-opted the term to apply it to anything they don’t like because they disliked serious journalists calling out right wing talking heads and here we are.
You’re correct and this is why I think things like these are needed. We’re literally talking about something that is maybe 10 years old at best. edit: in the modern context.
You’re saying… Donald saying he created something……
….
….
….
Is….
Fake news?
(I’ll see myself out,)
I mean, we learned all about citing and sources in 8th grade social studies.
Look at this guy, learning correctly!
I’ll have you know buddy, that I’m a moron and was constantly pushed up grades because I showed up enough and did half-ass work to earn a C and didn’t learn anything.
And most of us are like that! Because the American school system is fucked and rather not fail a kid and now we are in government and believe in Jewish space lasers and will fist fight people we disagree with!
Yes, just like how we all learned about how important it is to pay off credit card debt and the benefits of long term investing while in school (aka compound interest…in math class). Yet far too many people act like this is something that needs to be added to the curriculum when it’s already there.
FWIW, I don’t think we all learned that, they literally never taught that in my school. Like, they literally never explicitly mentioned “credit card debt” or “long-term investments” or any investments really in my classes, and I think they should have.
Of course it’s gonna be different from school to school, state to state, and country to country.
I was in high school in the mid 90s, and the primary focus of our economics class was balancing checkbooks type stuff. Definitely not loans, predatory interest rates, revolving credit, or anything else that would be remotely useful in today’s economy.
Once isn’t enough for retention for everyone. I think I remember that stuff because my parents discussed it when I asked. However I don’t know who discussed what in other homes. I think more exposure to real world applications of critical thinking and accounting will only help.
I strongly suspect there were both word problems used in your math classes and that compound interest was in the curriculum. But maybe there is somewhere there actually isn’t. Generally, the curriculum documents are all publicly available online too so feel free to take a look. Although finding the curriculum from 10+ years ago can be hard if there have been changes.
Had you really never seen something like ‘Joe currently owes $300 on his credit card with an annual interest rate of 22%. How much will he owe 2 years from now if he makes no payments and no new purchases’?
All you need is the compound interest formula. It could be about investments or a ball accelerating due to gravity and it’s still just that same formula with different numbers plugged in.
Sir, this is a public school
Had you really never seen something like ‘Joe currently owes $300 on his credit card with an annual interest rate of 22%. How much will he owe 2 years from now if he makes no payments and no new purchases’?
Honestly, no, I hadn’t seen anything like that in any of my classes, but the thing is even if I did it’s not worth anything just having those words and not actually teaching it and relating it to the real world and showing how it will affect us as adults when we are older. I 1000% didn’t have any teachers actively teaching specifically that using real-world things like credit cards that would matter to us students. For the most part I didn’t really have teachers actively teaching things like that, it almost felt more like they were going through the motions, I dunno maybe I just got unlucky.
K yeah, that sounds shitty and I’m sorry you had to deal with it. The fact that some of us, myself included, got quite lucky with good teachers who knew how to teach the content probably does make all the difference.
News is supposed to tell you what happened not how to feel about it. When you notice an article is using a lot of emotionally charged language, that’s a good sign to check the facts (if there are any)
You might as well only read news wires like Reuters and AP, then.
Context matters, emotions matter, selective reporting is rampant, and all journalism writes to their audience. It’s usually more accurate to read articles from both sides of an issue and assume that both are wrong, with the truth often somewhere in the middle. On a geopolitical scale, it’s also good to assume rational actors (because, far more often than not, they are rational even if you don’t have the context that rationalizes an action).
Or read anything and register how the language affects you compared to the substance of the piece.
with the truth often somewhere in the middle
Realistically, any piece of information is reported from a point of view. It is published following an editorial line, tinted by an opinon or an alter motive. This is why you should always consider the source of the information and if you really need to know, crosscheck with multiple independant sources.
It kind of sounds like you’re mistrusting of journalist in general. I don’t think journalists are the problem though, columnists maybe, and publishers definitely. There is the big difference between calling a LGBT bookreading a hellscape and calling a war zone a hellscape. Some news tells you what is; others chew it, digest it, and put sprinkles on the soft serve for you.
I don’t distrust journalists. I think it’s always important to consider who I am reading or hearing from, to take this fact into consideration as well in order to make my judgement. There are as many ways to report a fact as there are hands to write about it, the choice of words has an influence, as you pointed out with your example. We can trust reputable sources with more confidence, but non the less, I don’t think it’s ever as simple as reporting “what is”. E.g: “a cat got run over by a car” vs “a man killed a cat with his car” just reporting a fact, very different feeling.
Cool, same book, same page. I’ve just seen a lot of journalists get demonized because of the misinformation surge and that sucks because we need more of them more than ever.
We desperatly need more good journalists and more truly independent media. In this day in age we expect a lot for free, but I am glad to pay for newspaper subscription and for public radio/tv.
If an article has any emotional charge at all it’s automatically not factual
I can’t tell if you’re trying to lampoon my take or really believe that.
I still remember a 2 day assignment we had of finding scientific articles, and classifying them as trustworthy or not. Ie, was it in a peer reviewed journal vs a study at a “clinic” that has bias in the outcome. I remember that to this day and feel like it was a major shift toward my ability to think critically
Internet shizzos will believe this is indoctrination and brainwashing
They already think that about science class
I know adults who need to take that class.
The mafia is poisoning kids through oranges with HIV!!1!11!
This article is about fake news. The mafia is real though. 🤔
New York is a real place. Does that mean spiderman is real?
Yes. I couldn’t prove the Marvel movies to be a source of fake news.
That J Jonah just says what we’re all thinking
Wow, that’s clever. Thank you for the laugh!
I can already hear Republicans writing up a ban on this type of class in Florida.
Shortcut is to just include it under their definition of CRT
…a bit like how California classified bees as fish, except that was for conservation and this would just be evil lol
you sure they wouldn’t like to tell young people what to believe and what not?
Critical thinking skills != Telling people what to think
But then again, republicans won’t see a difference, or they’ll pretend not to see a difference
You see a problem with making children smarter?
I literally do not know how you read that from my original comment. That’s not even remotely what i said.
I said that republicans won’t ban this. If anything, they’ll misuse it to discredit opposing political views.
Yeah, they would, but I guarantee the course wouldn’t be about spotting fake news like this article is suggesting is what is going to happen.
Not a Republican but see one risk and one flaw in teaching kids to rely 100% on science: there are strategic reasons to make some decisions which you miss if you rely solely on “science” sources. The biggest risk here is if kids are taught to trust anything called “science” but not how to differentiate between good studies and bad studies - there are journals that will publish anything, and it’s easy to manipulate people if they cannot effectively differentiate between good and bad studies, which requires a deeper understanding of statistics and ability to think critically about the variables tested, controlled, and overlooked or ignored.
It’s still better than relying on literally anything else. Doesn’t have to be perfect.
That’s the thing though, outside of studies published in journals where you look up their ranking and it’s high enough that you trust the peer review, how do you tell the difference between imperfect and flawed in a way that renders the conclusion useless to your use case? It’s not a rhetorical question, that’s what I’m saying requires deeper knowledge and where you should not trust it alone without having qualified help review it for you. And without the help, yeah it’s just as well to go without.
If the study has major flaws it’s relatively easy to spot if you have an idea what to look for. You don’t need special education for that.
It’s not even a problem if you consider reputable sources in the first place, which, again, is relatively easy to do.
Looking at the alternative, even a flawed study is better than a simple opinion piece.
So yeah, I disagree with everything you said basically.
You disagree with my statement that is not actually contradicted by anything in your statement, apart from your open acceptance of flawed studies?
My question then is this: what do they teach kids to allow them to spot flaws and what do they teach them as the method for determining who is reputable? Beyes theorem? How to control for multiple variables? I don’t actually know whether they go into this or tell kids to JUST trust an authority.
Flawed studies have done all kinds of harm over the years before being retracted. Linking vaccines to autism for one.
You disagree with my statement that is not actually contradicted by anything in your statement, apart from your open acceptance of flawed studies?
Because your statement offers no viable alternative and basically condemns following scientific literature unless you are a trained professional on the grounds that some studies might be flawed.
Which is what I tried to point out in both of my prior comments to no avail.
My question then is this: what do they teach kids to allow them to spot flaws and what do they teach them as the method for determining who is reputable? Beyes theorem? How to control for multiple variables? I don’t actually know whether they go into this or tell kids to JUST trust an authority.
That question is impossible to answer. Even if we were only talking about the US, but much less globally. What we can agree on is that it’s probably not enough in most places.
Flawed studies have done all kinds of harm over the years before being retracted. Linking vaccines to autism for one.
And the attitude of “one study has been flawed so I won’t trust science ever again” is something that you predict to be a better viable alternative?
I think you misunderstood. The article doesn’t suggest that children are taught to rely on science, but instead suggests they use critical-thinking skills.
The class is dedicated to developing critical thinking skills.
Is this real? I can’t tell.
Should move to California. I hear they’re teaching about how to tell if something is real or not.
Can’t believe everything you hear I’m afraid
I hear that you can
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Thinking critically about internet content
Random confession bear meme on the board
“Ok class. What are some things wrong with this meme? Samantha?”
“It’s not actually confessing anything?”
“Correct!”
fully expect the entire right wing media aparatus to be demonizing this as something ridiculous as brainwashing kids against facts and truth, and “LIBERALS REQUIRE FORCED INDOCTRINATION TO MAKE KIDS ACCEPT THEIR LIES”.
Or worse, they have the same sort of class, but opposite- one that teaches kids how to recognize “liberal” prose and teaches them to reject it.
And you know it will devolve into little more than literal nazi indoctrination, with hatred for trans, gays, jews, immigrants,etc.
Really bad news for the MAGAs.
it’ll be illegal in 3…2…
Something we need, not just in schools but outside as well.
Nearly every act of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia ever committed has been committed by conservatives.
We should be teaching our children why it is immoral to do business or keep relationships with conservatives.
…Progressive here. Blatantly untrue. First of all, all those words are a form of bigotry, for clarification. Second of all, everyone is capable of— and has participated in— bigotry at some point. It’s just baked into culture and you pick it up through osmosis— whether you wanted to or not. Some of it you may never participate in, but others? It takes effort to fight the stuff that slips through the cracks.
This, frankly, is an incredible move. Hopefully us Europeans take notice and consider implementing something similar.
We did this when I went to school 30 years ago
hope we do not.
Imagine the most fringe right Party in your country. Now imagine they come to power. Now imagine what they would do with such a class.
For what its worth, my country has had a far right party in power for the last 13 years, and I still want this.
…Ban it? Or at least keep the name and ban the actual content. I mean, they clearly can’t teach people to think critically. They’d be asking people to scrutinize what they’re doing.
