Information overload helps fake news spread

I tried registering for updates but got a Cloudflare 502. HN "hug of death"?

Once it's sorted out, I'll give it another shot. Quick request: can you please add more details to a faq or something? eg. how much it'll cost for us users, will there be a desktop interface, etc.

Thanks!

If it's reporters notes (like the site says) it means what consumers get isn't distilled into the flow of a story that informs. That is left up to people who consume to do and to do that they need to get all the details. Sounds overwhelming to me. Or, am I missing something?

Every time I visit a local news page, it's 10% content advertised by the headline, and 90% popups, clickbait, and "ads" like, "Drivers over 55 without a DUI are in for a surprise this November!" with a picture of the Centrum Silver guy with a handful of cash.

That being said, I heard in a local podcast about an initiative for local news platform, but more to get directly reporters to get paid instead of a middle man as newspaper (the platform just allowed to select your city, and they had themselves very low margins). Margins for local news are already really thin due to lack of amount of potential interest. Some is even state sponsored. Its a tough market for sure. I forgot the name of the platform (it was partially still being build ie. only a number of pilot cities), which is kind of telling, I guess.

Same. This year, with the coverage of Covid (an area where I have a certain level of expertise), I've been bombarded with the extremely low quality level of essentially all of the major news providers. They are more than willing to amplify the most speculative voices, credulously, without even basic fact-checking. The ones that depend on advertising are the worst, overall. Writers with no subject-matter expertise will take a scary quote from a single source, won't bother to make even the simplest of efforts to verify the claim, and will publish it just to get the scoop.

I won't mention names because I'll only be downvoted, but there are some extremely high-profile "scientific" media figures who are constantly broadcasting utter nonsense. And because they heard it from a "scientist" on the news, people will attack you if you rebut it. I am old enough to remember when journalists were skeptical of the people they interviewed, and the rule was that no fact was published without independent verification (read "All the President's Men" for example).

2020 is the year where the news media fell apart for me -- it is all simply entertainment now, which is unfortunate.

This has been widely studied and seems to be surprisingly effective. When there is lack of expertise or objective metrics, people default to social proof or whatever misleading thing they could use as a measure. Many sales people abuse this and it is written in those manuals as well.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

>“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” – Michael Crichton

I've noticed I have this sort of meta Gell-Mann effect where every time I think of that annecdote the news seems much more dubious. Then a short while later I go back to not thinking about it and reading the news as I otherwise would.

> He used this term to describe the phenomenon of experts believing news articles on topics outside of their fields of expertise, even after acknowledging that articles written in the same publication that are within the experts' fields of expertise are error-ridden and full of misunderstanding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...

I have always wondered the second order effect of binging so much media and it kind of shows these days with people being dumbfounded/superficial and making connections where none exists.

In other words, empower people.

I agree but this is part of the struggle. All the con artists tell you they want you to be empowered to make the correct decisions yourself and the other guy is a con artist who bullshits you into thinking he is trying to empower you.

You can not apply personal solutions to systemic problems.

You're assuming the majority of people are bamboozled by bias and propaganda, and if they were better educated they'd be immune.

But it's just as likely that they'll continue to believe what suits them regardless of rationality training. Assessing sources and analyzing information is hard work. So is thinking, and it's especially difficult if the results go against the beliefs of your social group.

I'm not convinced that critical thinking skills will make the slightest bit of difference to the vast majority of people .

I'm fairly sure my family's opinions come straight from the media.

If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article

And of course: the world is confusing and complex. Stuff that was previously something only crazy people would believe turned out to be true (think Snowden). Given such a world isn't it easier to just form some idea in thin air and worship it instead of admitting that you have no clue what is going on? This is what is happening here.

And social media is the perfect echo chamber to avoid the cognitive dissonance one would get when the rubber meets the road in terms of an reality check. If there are millions others that share your world view how wrong can you be?

Media isn't innocent in that sense, politics isn't innocent, social media companies and marketing people aren't innocent. They are all complicit in this. But saying something among the lines of "people go to apeshit conspiracy nonsense sites because they don't trust the media" would be a bit far fetched as well.

I think the main reason people do it is because A) they can and B) it feels better than not doing it.

The classical media is certainly part of that feeling, but certainly not the biggest part of it.

I think it's media hacking another vulnerable parts of human beings. I see attempts to censor and attempts to fake being censored in order to hijack different vulnerabilities.

I would say it has, and I consider only reasonable that there is a desire to understand the mechanisms behind it. I would consider the effects net negative. No need to a concerted effort.

Stengel wrote last year in a Washington Post op-ed that US freedom of speech was too unfettered and that changes must be considered:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/29/why-ameri...

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley warned about Stengel’s appointment in a column Tuesday: “It would be difficult to select a more anti-free speech figure to address government media policy, one has to assume that Biden will continue the onslaught against this core freedom as president.”

He noted that Biden himself had publicly advocated restrictions on speech during the campaign: “Biden called for greater speech controls on the Internet and denounced Twitter for allowing others to speak freely.”

One side of the political aisle rallies against social media for censoring their posts while the other side says social media don't censor enough. I feel there is a simmering battle over a lot of our constitutionally protected rights which is about to reach a crescendo depending on what the Biden administration does in the next few years.

what kind of evidence would you expect to see if it was true?

But yes, it seems to be a bot account as of the last few months.

I'm not sure how you mean fact checkers are leaning one way or another. Sure, there are different ways to interpret things, but I don't believe it's enough to bias towards either end of the spectrum.

To your last point, you are already looking critically at the studies they mention, so why wouldn't everyone?