Far-right pages that publish misinformation get the most interaction on Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Far-right pages that publish misinformation get the most interaction on Facebook

wired.com

30 pointsrbanffy34 comments

Does this surprise anyone? Anyone who is a diehard republican, especially in the climate of the last 4-5 years, I cannot consider to be an intelligent person. They're all living in an illusion. I used to consider myself a fiscal conservative and was able to ignore some of the other horseshit, but lately it is just out of control and I want no part of it.

This is, quite naturally, a very divisive topic. It's extremely difficult to even attempt to look at something like this objectively. The odds are very high you have more positive feelings about one political leaning or the other. And the odds are also high that you believe news that fits your side at least seems more fact-based and informational, and less biased than the opposing side.

It is, of course, entirely possible that one side is, in reality, sticking closer to the facts than the other. But it's really hard to put forth a convincing argument that would change the mind of the other side.

Does anyone believe they have something really convincing and likely to successfully change the minds of someone that disagrees with them on this topic? Have you ever presented what you believe to be facts to someone that disagreed with you, only to have them continue to disagree, and perhaps even dispute with you whether those are really facts?

> But it's really hard to put forth a convincing argument that would change the mind of the other side.

The article is about a research paper and its results. You can check it, check the methodology, the sources and try to poke holes on it using proper scientific methods.

Unfortunately, when one's identity relies on the belief certain things are true, it's hard to convince them otherwise, even with overwhelming evidence.

I suspect those that read my comment (and perhaps downvoted) think I'm just arguing "both sides -ism" or whatever that's called. I'm not. I do agree with one of the sides more than the other, and believe there is more factual reporting, and a lot less "this isn't true but we need it to be to support our agenda so ** it, report it!" Or "let's just write persuasive essays with lots of conjecture, as that will be enough to convince a lot of people." As others have said, both sides do slant reporting, writing headlines and focusing on the details that better support what they believe, but I think this is well beyond that.

Anyway, my comment was not picking sides, or denying the report. It was mostly speaking to the community, to remind them why this sort of post tends to just go sideways and likely doesn't accomplish what we would hope it to. (And the shared article was flagged about 30 seconds after I posted my comment, so... no surprise there!)

> this sort of post tends to just go sideways

It shouldn't. We are adults and we certainly should be able to deal with an article about a scientific study.

I think the effect this topic has on the members of HN is just indicative of the larger problem. Even (normally) quite intelligent, research-driven folks are handling this topic differently. The normal upvote for good discussion, downvote for not contributing is all but thrown out the window for agree/disagree voting.

Normally, a scientific study would be a good reason to say "I may have been wrong" but often in these cases, the only explanation each and every time is "the study is wrong, and it only exists because the other side sponsored it."

Their source seems to be this website

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

(make sure to have all your ad blockers on before clicking)

I clicked couple of their "fact checks" and all of them seem to fact checking exclusively right wing types? Is there such thing as left wing misinformation ?

Reading their wikipage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check

> The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."[2] The Poynter Institute notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."

It really depends what you consider to be left wing. If you go to a media source with articles written by actual socialists or anarchists (like e.g. Jacobin), you will find many pieces pointing out the misinformation in mainstream left wing media like Economist, NYT, WaPo, etc.

Their source seems to be this website

And NewsGuard, https://www.newsguardtech.com/

Here is more information on them from Sharyl Attkisson, an expert in analyzing media bias,

“This started, and I traced this in my second book, ‘The Smear,’ to Media Matters … the left-wing propaganda group that supported Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and is a big smear organization,” Attkisson says. “They acknowledged going to Facebook about the time when they were worried that Donald Trump was going to get elected.

They really felt that the only thing giving him a leg up, and they still believe this today, is his social media outreach. They tried to think of a way to control, with the kind of social media and news people could get, so Media Matters lobbied Facebook and tried to convince them — and did so successfully — to taking a fact-checking brand-new role that nobody had ever asked for.

We're not begging for our information to be curated. That was a pretend demand created by the propagandists who wanted to control the information. They had to make us think that we needed a third party to step in and tell us what to think and sort through the information … The fake news effort, the fact-checking, which is usually fake fact-checking, meaning it's not a genuine effort, is a propaganda effort …

We’ve seen it explode as we come into the 2020 election, for much the same reason, whereby, the social media companies, third parties, academic institutions and NewsGuard … they insert themselves. But of course, they're all backed by certain money and special interests. They're no more in a position to fact-check than an ordinary person walking on the street …

They have interests. They make sure certain things are not seen, even if true. And I think this is the most serious threat that I'm looking at right now to our media environment.

I'm afraid that our kids will be telling their kids of a time when you used to be able to go on the internet and find most, any, information you wanted, because we are increasingly being pointed only to that which they, people who control the information, wish for us to see.”

Source: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/11/...

When one's socio-political worldview depends upon denying reality it is not surprising that some people choose to avoid cognitive dissonance by sharing and proselytizing fantasy that confirms their biases. At the moment left-wing positions on contentious issues are less in conflict with available facts and create less cognitive dissonance, leading to less need for a retreat into make-believe stories.

It is also worth noting that the next-most likely cohort to reject reality was the far left. Quite a ways below the far right, but noticeably divergent from centrists and those who were only slightly left or right.

> At the moment left-wing positions on contentious issues are less in conflict with available facts

That really depends on the issue in question. Climate change? Yes, the left is living in reality more so than the right. How gender relates to biology? I'd say the right is more grounded in reality on this one.

I actually saw someone with a relatively large following on Twitter the other day suggest that the government give mandatory hormone blockers to all children so that they more easily decide their gender. I wouldn’t even call them the far left because they seem to have no interest in economic issues, but some people really have lost their goddamn minds with this shit.

Maybe they do this because they know the “reality” presented to them is also a lie, but right-wing lies are the only alternative they are presented with. Using more facts and data to back up a fundamentally false narrative doesn’t make it any more true.

that is true tautologically. If it is right wing it is fake news and if it is left wing it is simply news. /s

Says Wired.com

Wired merely reports the research study that says it. And they've linked to it, too.

https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-new...

Says openly published research. You can check their methodology, data sources to your heart’s content. Wired is only reporting the existence and results of the research.

https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-new...

Did you just link me to a Medium article written by some NYU "research group"? Just to be clear, thats New York University, one of the most liberal places on the planet.

(Which likely makes their methodologies and conclusions less suspect because their political leanings indicate a lack of disdain for the scientific research process.)

Thats a pretty snooty thing to say. Fits the bill.

You had it coming.

Going back to the example I was thinking of, it's pretty easy to identify that climate-denying research is funded largely by right-wing organizations seeking to manipulate the public to produce a particular outcome, instead of seeking the truth:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/mar/0...

https://books.google.com/books?id=qbVcIc8w6w4C&q=climate+cha...

(paywall:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/unearthin...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/robert-brulle-ins...

I, unfortunately, am having a hard time finding an overview of the methods used to influence the science (there's just so damn much noise in the results). The methods as I recall them, are to have papers cite papers that haven't been released in order to inflate the apparent amount of relevant research.

When the unreleased papers are released they will, of course, cite the papers that cited them as references, creating a referential-circularity that can't exist in honest academic research due to the fact that time only flows forwards.

If you have non-contrived and non-debunked examples of research organizations you would identify as left-leaning trying to manipulate public opinion through the dispersal of false science, I'm all ears.

I very much doubt this.

I think the main difference is that the companies and experts who decide on our behalf what is, and is not, fake news tend to be more sympathetic to the left wing than to the right wing. There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech, media, and academia.

The result of this is that a much wider swath of right-wing content is likely to get labelled as fake news in the first place, even things that may be in a gray area or under honest dispute.

When your world-view is in conflict with reality and objective fact it makes it hard to succeed in tech, media, and academia. The stories in question are marked as fake news by third parties because they are easily dis-proven lies.

I don't think that's necessary true. When it comes to success in a given field, what's (sadly) most important most of the time is how aligned your views are with others in that field, not how aligned your view are with reality.

If you don't believe me, grab lunch with a group of academics in your area.

> There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech, media, and academia.

That is because intelligent people can see right through the bullshit. Smart people can be conservative, I used to consider myself one, but lately the delusion and outright commitment to ignorance is too hard to ignore. Cognitive dissonance is at an all time high.

I don't think I've ever seen fake news that was left wing, unless you consider something like the New York Times left wing (it's not, it's centre-right), in which case there is a lot of spurious news in the "left wing" of mainstream media.

That said, they usually at least get the facts right, they just like to lie by omission, pushing an agenda by cherry-picking data. Far right media goes one step further and often just directly publishes false data to mislead its readers.

I very much doubt this.

Why? This may be my ignorance speaking, but I can't think of anything equivalent to QAnon and 'stop the steal' from the left side of the American political spectrum. Russiagate, maybe? That had at least some grounding in reality, and from what I could see, never inspired the same fervor...

Example: Russiagate

We also have a President who is a known serial plagiarist but suddenly all the fact checkers have disappeared. It's hard to believe, based on his history, that Biden's not scoring some Pinocchios.

On Politifact, at least, Biden does score the proverbial Pinocchio: https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/

I used Politifact because their UI makes it easy to aggregate by person.

There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech

This site seems to belie that. Just looking through this thread I see a lot of conservative posts.

That represents "HN posters" rather than tech in general, which does apparently lean liberal. But it also has a large libertarian-leaning-right streak who will defend the rights of right-wing misinformation while calling out left-wing misinformation, asymmetrically.

people WANT to see disinformation because they don't care of the truth. they care only about the STRENGTH to do what they want to do any way, and misinformation enable them to do it.

it's completely logical for anyone who is not obssessed by "rationality" such as engineers

Pretty easy to say that when you pretend the “Fake News” coming from the other side is just the truth lmao. They outright lie for months to influence election results as well, but it’s fine when they do it because they’re the mainstream lie I guess.

But let’s say the categorization isn’t the issue and right wing propaganda really does get more engagement. Why? Maybe because they’re naturally conspiratorial/paranoid etc. But I think partly because there’s a growing feeling that something is wrong and that there is this false reality & narrative built up around us. Even right wing propaganda that’s clearly bullshit speaks to this underlying feeling & that may be why people engage with it.

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