Misinformation ‘Superspreaders’ Seed False Election Theories
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It isn't just directed at the NYT to be fair and the harsh tone might stem from the fact that I have higher expectations. Personal problem of mine.
There really hasn't ever been that, in the US at least.
Yellow Journalism [0] has been around for ~120 years now. The 1800 US Presidential campaign was very slanderous and personal [1]. His Girl Friday (1940)[2] starring Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant is a great comedy about journalism and the all the shady things that go on. Reading through all those events, the tricks are the same ones that we humans fall for time and again. Sure, FAANG and the like have made it faster, more up-tempo. But the lies have always gotten half-way around the globe before the truth put it's pants on.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800_United_States_presidentia...
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032599/ (No really, it's great! Go watch it!)
For that model work, you need two sides with a commitment to the common goals and a good respect for truth and a common set of facts, which we don't have anymore. That stopped being the case at least by the time one side ran a president who is an obvious-to-most compulsive liar with tendencies for demagoguery.
How can abuse like this be stopped when one of our most important values is the ability to say and publish whatever you want?
Maybe we can help somehow? E.g. develop and popularize criteria of articles "truthfulness", basics of fact-checking etc.
When you want to whitewash them.
You can't call a lie an opinion.
This is nothing new: People used to argue that the earth was flat, then they argued that the sun orbited the earth. You can't let people get away with contradicting established fact just because it's an "opinion."
Twitter, like Facebook, has said that those labels help prevent false claims from being shared and direct people toward more authoritative sources of information.
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed News reported that Facebook employees questioned whether the labels were effective."
super creepy- and another reminder that there are so many influential people that want to see anyone they don't agree with de-platformed
In general, if you want people to have confidence in an election, you need to take seriously claims of fraud and investigate them openly.
To flatly call them "misinformation" and advocate for further censorship of people making the claims does not give confidence, to put it mildly.
If you want people to have confidence in an election, you need to take serious claims of fraud seriously.
Is your view that because the misinformation is right-wing, that this is propaganda for the left?
The 80-20 rule exists for social media posting so of course a small amount of people contribute to most of the "misinformation". [0]
Calling them "superspreaders" is really close to propaganda. (Particularly when you could argue the media is/was the original "superspreader" of misinformation.)
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
There's got to be ways to improve on the status quo so that it's much more clear that someone is lying if they make such claims.
The other related problem is when one party tries to prevent vote counts from being completed such as by objecting to every ballot.
There's got to be a better way. Silicon valley should be doing everything it can to help.
I hope everyone realizes the powers that took on Trump, Big Tech, Deep State, China/Russia/EU, Democrats, etc. Quite the feat that it took that much power to barely beat Trump (which is debatable until we get a handle on what happened for voting. I don't know if the election was rigged, but I wouldn't put it past them and there are some weird anomalies in the voting data).
Why do you think the story was dropped? Personally, I think it's likely that said information was not actually ever damning, but I guess the Deep State could have gotten to Tucker, if that's your conspiracy theory.
And this get to one of things I really hate about US politics. They write the rules, but don't seem to have to abide by any of them. There is always a loop hole or connection to save them. Pathetic.
Regarding Tucker, his show is the only show I watch every night. I think he does a great job at bringing light to the under belly of Washington. 'The sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.' Now, do I think he's perfect, no. Nobody is.
I'll give you a hint: It's far easier to get sued for defamation if you read lies on TV than if you say you have bad stuff to say about someone but won't say it because you're nice.
Again, who knows. Would it have made a difference if other news channels had picked up the story? Probably. Did it make a difference? Doesn't look like it.
Look, I voted for Obama 2008, voted Libertarian in 2012, and Trump 2016/2020 (for his America first policies, not his personality, which why this election was so mind blowing). My background is in Finance, specifically Hedge Funds, and I'm relatively a newcomer to watching how Politics all works. The idea that you have to stir your constituents into a craze for 4 years and feed them lies, so you don't lose power is really sad. Both sides are guilty of it.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-suddenly-says-i...
As others have said, after hearing about Russian collusion for 3 years, as long as Trump keeps his mouth shut about having won the election, I'm perfectly fine with them making their case within the legal system. As I said, I think it's good for democracy if people feel as though their claims were addressed. Especially with a judicial system theoretically predisposed towards favoring Trump, them shutting down the allegations of fraud so far can avoid having been done so we a bias for Biden. The odds of the election results changing are astronomically low, so even if you don't want Trump to win, by allowing this process to play out, you are simply bolstering the evidence of a Biden win.
Under what circumstances do you believe that the doubts actually get settled? A court can direct the government to accept one outcome or another, but it can't direct that people stop expressing their doubts. And as long as the doubts are prominently expressed, I don't expect any investigation to settle it. Doubts are free, both libre and gratis, and you can expect them to be indulged in accordingly.
We should, by all means, pursue the investigations, because it's legally required. But I don't expect it to provide anything except more evidence of a conspiracy, because that's how conspiracy theories work.
But I don't think it will convince a majority of them. Remember, a majority of this same group still doesn't believe that the previous President was born in the United States:
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/xj7rpmvws8/econTabReport.pdf#pag...
Perhaps an official court ruling will be more persuasive. So there's no need to make a strawman out of this: if a large majority are convinced, then my skepticism will have been wrong.