Fake News

[Enhance]

 

 

Here is a very interesting article that is frankly not favorable to us conservatives when it comes to fake news.

It seems we are more prone to accept fake news at face value than our more liberal friends - according to one researcher. The research, by John Jost of NY Univ, said it has nothing to do wt intelligence or ability but motivation. He says Quote: "conservatives may be perfectly able to do the kind of critical thinking & cognitive exploration that would lead them to be more skeptical of nonsense and fake news-- they just choose not to, preferring instead to seek out information that allows them to make quick decisions that reinforce their existing views."

 

However "Not all social scientists are convinced that conservatives and liberals process the world in meaningfully different ways." Another research at Yale, Daniel Kahan, says "his research has found that people on the right are no more vulnerable to political bias than those on the left'. Kahan's research concluded that his tests 'didn't turn up any meaningful difference between the two." "Bottom line, there's ample evidence of politically biased information processing across the entire ideological spectrum."

 

The article goes back and forth quoting these 2 researchers.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/07/why-conservatives-might-be-more-likely-to-fall-for-fake-news/?utm_term=.c773813705c4

If my Facebook timeline is in any way representative of this, I would say the people I follow who identify as more conservative were more likely than others to share fake news or highly opinionated/slanted news on their timelines during this last election.

 

And, if I'm honest, most of these same people (in my timeline) are not college educated.

 

All that said, I did have a fair number of the more liberal people I'm friends with also sharing outrageously opinionated articles, but the frequency was less. I did not, however, see as many blatantly false stories coming from them, though I did see a few.

 

I would agree with this. However, I found that many of the ones doing it on my timeline WERE actually pretty highly educated. One friend from college I know graduated with a 4.0 and then went on to be top 5 in his law class. Others were good friends of mine from college who graduated and went on to have good careers. It totally baffles me that these are the people on my timeline that constantly pass along fake news.

 

Thinking now about the few people who I had to stop following, one is an electrical contractor so he went to at least a tech school. One graduated from UNK. The other one just had a HS diploma for all I know.

 

That's incredibly interesting. For comparison, the following people were the most egregious sharers of fake or heavily slanted Republican 'news' in my timelines:

 

- cousin (one year of college, no degree, Army reserves)

- another cousin (senior in high school)

- future parents-in-law (no college degrees)

- old middle school friend (no college education yet, but is about to leave the Air Force)

- my significant other's aunt (no college education)

 

On the liberal side of things, I actually can't remember who I saw share a fake article once. But, another relative and two of my old high school teachers (all very liberal) were by far and away the greatest sharers of heavily slanted liberal articles, but they were still mostly accurate reports.

[NM11046]

I'd like to add that those on my timeline sharing the most egregious fake news stories are also those I'd put in a category as "most religious".

 

They're also the ones that used to (as in up to a few months ago when I told them they must stop) share articles with me personally about how muslims were in the northeast acting like doctors and that I should be careful, and and there were other attempts being made to trick me out here.

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

 

Here is a very interesting article that is frankly not favorable to us conservatives when it comes to fake news.

It seems we are more prone to accept fake news at face value than our more liberal friends - according to one researcher. The research, by John Jost of NY Univ, said it has nothing to do wt intelligence or ability but motivation. He says Quote: "conservatives may be perfectly able to do the kind of critical thinking & cognitive exploration that would lead them to be more skeptical of nonsense and fake news-- they just choose not to, preferring instead to seek out information that allows them to make quick decisions that reinforce their existing views."

 

However "Not all social scientists are convinced that conservatives and liberals process the world in meaningfully different ways." Another research at Yale, Daniel Kahan, says "his research has found that people on the right are no more vulnerable to political bias than those on the left'. Kahan's research concluded that his tests 'didn't turn up any meaningful difference between the two." "Bottom line, there's ample evidence of politically biased information processing across the entire ideological spectrum."

 

The article goes back and forth quoting these 2 researchers.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/07/why-conservatives-might-be-more-likely-to-fall-for-fake-news/?utm_term=.c773813705c4

If my Facebook timeline is in any way representative of this, I would say the people I follow who identify as more conservative were more likely than others to share fake news or highly opinionated/slanted news on their timelines during this last election.

 

And, if I'm honest, most of these same people (in my timeline) are not college educated.

 

All that said, I did have a fair number of the more liberal people I'm friends with also sharing outrageously opinionated articles, but the frequency was less. I did not, however, see as many blatantly false stories coming from them, though I did see a few.

 

I would agree with this. However, I found that many of the ones doing it on my timeline WERE actually pretty highly educated. One friend from college I know graduated with a 4.0 and then went on to be top 5 in his law class. Others were good friends of mine from college who graduated and went on to have good careers. It totally baffles me that these are the people on my timeline that constantly pass along fake news.

 

Thinking now about the few people who I had to stop following, one is an electrical contractor so he went to at least a tech school. One graduated from UNK. The other one just had a HS diploma for all I know.

 

That's incredibly interesting. For comparison, the following people were the most egregious sharers of fake or heavily slanted Republican 'news' in my timelines:

 

- cousin (one year of college, no degree, Army reserves)

- another cousin (senior in high school)

- future parents-in-law (no college degrees)

- old middle school friend (no college education yet, but is about to leave the Air Force)

- my significant other's aunt (no college education)

 

On the liberal side of things, I actually can't remember who I saw share a fake article once. But, another relative and two of my old high school teachers (all very liberal) were by far and away the greatest sharers of heavily slanted liberal articles, but they were still mostly accurate reports.

 

I remember two liberals on my timeline passing along fake news.

 

One is an elderly cousin. I don't know what her educational back ground is.

 

Another is a person I knew in HS. Again, not sure what educational back ground is but I would be surprised if she had any sort of degree.

 

Interestingly, both are animal rights activists and their "fake news" was in relation to their views on that.

[BigRedBuster]

I'd like to add that those on my timeline sharing the most egregious fake news stories are also those I'd put in a category as "most religious".

 

I would say mine is a mixed bag on the religious part. I don't see necessarily a trend on that.

[Danny Bateman]

Here's an interesting study that I just read a bit on the other day. Supports the notion that perhaps conservative folks are more likely to propagate this stuff than liberal folks. But not necessary because they lack the ability to think critically or because they're dumber-- they just seem to prefer confirmation bias rather than disrupt their own pre-exisiting views.

 

 

Pfattheicher has done his own work into how conservatives and liberals process "bulls--t" -- in this case a highly technical term (yes, really) denoting statements that appear to be profound, but which are in fact meaningless.

 

In a small study earlier this year, Pfattheicher posed nonsensical statements like "hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty" and "attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation" -- to 196 supporters of various U.S. presidential candidates. He then asked them to rate how "profound" the statements were on a scale of 1 to 5, from "not at all" to "very profound."

 

While the study was not nationally representative, he found a significant correlation between support for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Donald Trump and the favorable assessment of the meaningless statements. The relationship was the strongest for Cruz supporters in his sample

 

Conversely, he found no significant relationship between support for Democratic candidates and susceptibility to the nonsensical sentences.

 

Pfattheicher also found that individuals who identified as more conservative were more likely to be duped by nonsense than liberals.

 

Both Pfattheicher and Jost say that any cognitive differences aren't necessarily about intelligence. "This seems to be more a matter of motivation to process information (or news) in a critical, reflective thinking style than the ability to do so," Pfattheicher said in an email.

 

In other words, in Pfattheicher's reading, conservatives may be perfectly able to do the kind of critical thinking and cognitive exploration that would lead them to be more skeptical of nonsense and fake news -- they just choose not to, preferring instead to seek out information that allows them to make quick decisions that reinforce their existing views.

[funhusker]

 

 

I would agree with this. However, I found that many of the ones doing it on my timeline WERE actually pretty highly educated. One friend from college I know graduated with a 4.0 and then went on to be top 5 in his law class. Others were good friends of mine from college who graduated and went on to have good careers. It totally baffles me that these are the people on my timeline that constantly pass along fake news.

 

Thinking now about the few people who I had to stop following, one is an electrical contractor so he went to at least a tech school. One graduated from UNK. The other one just had a HS diploma for all I know.

 

Huskerlaw84???

[Fru]

Anyone have a guess on what happened?

 

 

Like... how did we go from trying to move society forward by being learned to suddenly fighting back against it like knowledge is the boogie man?

 

Few things, in my opinion.

 

• Abolishing the Fairness Doctrine
• Cutting funding for education
• Development of an individualistic society

 

Getting rid of policy requiring honest reporting on public matters, combined with a poorly educated populace, combined with a society that values individualistic characteristics that largely seek "affirmation" for their feelings and thoughts and not "information" about whether those thoughts and feelings are accurate or factual... anti-intellectualism is what you get.

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

 

I would agree with this. However, I found that many of the ones doing it on my timeline WERE actually pretty highly educated. One friend from college I know graduated with a 4.0 and then went on to be top 5 in his law class. Others were good friends of mine from college who graduated and went on to have good careers. It totally baffles me that these are the people on my timeline that constantly pass along fake news.

 

Thinking now about the few people who I had to stop following, one is an electrical contractor so he went to at least a tech school. One graduated from UNK. The other one just had a HS diploma for all I know.

 

Huskerlaw84???

 

LOL...no.

[HuskerNation1]

Interesting thread. It appears the new talking points from the left and Hillary herself is that she lost the election because of "fake news." A few weeks ago Russia was the villain, then it was Comey, and now it appears to be fake news. I wonder what the excuse will be next week.

[knapplc]

Hillary lost the election because people don't like her.

 

Fake news is a bad thing for America because people aren't discerning enough to see the difference between propaganda and facts.

 

These are not the same conversation.

[BigRedBuster]

Interesting thread. It appears the new talking points from the left and Hillary herself is that she lost the election because of "fake news." A few weeks ago Russia was the villain, then it was Comey, and now it appears to be fake news. I wonder what the excuse will be next week.

 

 

No...the fake news is not a "left" or "right" issue. It's an American issue. Both sides fall for this crap. Now, we can get into discussions about to what degree each does...but, the fact remains...it exists on both sides.

Now, if the right WANTS this to become just a "right" issue, then they can ignore it and not fight against it. Their followers can just keep passing this crap all over social media and keep losing touch with reality.

 

[Enhance]

Interesting thread. It appears the new talking points from the left and Hillary herself is that she lost the election because of "fake news." A few weeks ago Russia was the villain, then it was Comey, and now it appears to be fake news. I wonder what the excuse will be next week.

Uninteresting take, about as pleasant as pouring muriatic acid into one's eyes.

[Danny Bateman]

 

Interesting thread. It appears the new talking points from the left and Hillary herself is that she lost the election because of "fake news." A few weeks ago Russia was the villain, then it was Comey, and now it appears to be fake news. I wonder what the excuse will be next week.

 

 

No...the fake news is not a "left" or "right" issue. It's an American issue. Both sides fall for this crap. Now, we can get into discussions about to what degree each does...but, the fact remains...it exists on both sides.

Now, if the right WANTS this to become just a "right" issue, then they can ignore it and not fight against it. Their followers can just keep passing this crap all over social media and keep losing touch with reality.

 

 

 

Isn't that exactly what happened with climate change and any amount of gun regulation?

 

They seem to take that tact a lot.

[BigRedBuster]

This is just friggen sick.

 

[Fru]

Hillary lost the election because people don't like her.

 

Fake news is a bad thing for America because people aren't discerning enough to see the difference between propaganda and facts.

 

These are not the same conversation.

 

This.