Last week, while enjoying a 2 am stroll in the middle of winter, I was attacked by two illegal immigrants in MAGA hats and matching confederate flag jackets.
I believe that I have read of many studies that prove that people are pretty good at filtering out the bullshit from social media "news" feeds. I think what it really is... two monkey tribes flinging poo at each other. The monkeys know it is poo, but the attraction is the flinging with the hope that it hits the face of the opposing monkeys.
More important that this social media poo flinging is the ideological corruption of student minds. The outrage industry is feed and energized as these kids launch with their screwed up muffin brains and end up in positions of power and influence... where they have adopted the poo as food.
"I believe that I have read of many studies that prove that people are pretty good at filtering out the bullshit from social media "news" feeds"
Could you share some of these studies? Most of the evidence I have is polling or anecdotal, but it certainly seems that millions of people are terrible at filtering out bullshit. Partly because, like all of us depending on the topic, they don't know enough about complex topics to differentiate between fact and fiction.
I think the establishment is pushing this notion that misinformation is a threat to democracy is a lie because the establishment wants to stop opposition to the establishment.
Thanks a lot for this, that's really interesting. Also thanks for being one of the very few people who provides data to back up their claims.
Although it's worth noting that this doesn't say anything about filtering, this is about how trustworthy people think various institutions are, not how good people are at distinguishing between true and false information.
The sticking point for me is more about how people decide what to trust and what percentage of the time they get it right. What do people actually earn when they say they're doing their own research"?
It's also worth noting the influence of heuristics like availability and recency bias. If you hear a lie enough times, it's hard to resist the conclusion that there must be something to it. And it's easy to trick people into drawing broad conclusions about groups based on very small sample sizes or tiny fragments of evidence.
The Springfield pet eating hoax was a good example of this. Lots of people believed this by the time it had been floating around for a while. And it was used to back a broader anti+immigrant sentiment, but it was based on literally nothing but a couple of out of context pictures and a random guy saying he saw a van with "hundreds of cats" in it.
I'm reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" at the moment and he's got some interesting research on this that I might fold into an article.👍
I just remembered, that social media was more an indication of influence before Musk purchased Twitter because the MSM used Twitter as a central opinion generator that then led to MSM reporting and back and forth. I am not sure if Bluesky is replacing it because I don't go there. But since Twitter changed to Musk, and Zukerberg committed to free speech, other than Google still promoting the left view in its algorithms, social media and the Internet in general is back to more wild west.
Frankly, Joe Rogan and Substack and other sources are taking over for influence and that is a good thing.
"But since Twitter changed to Musk, and Zuckerberg committed to free speech, other than Google still promoting the left view in its algorithms, social media and the Internet in general is back to more wild west."
I will never, ever understand how people can decry political bias and then imply that Twitter improved under Musk. Nobody who actually cares about political bias (as opposed to simply wanting "their side" to win the bias wars) could possibly look at Twitter today as anything but a giant step backwards. It is a propaganda machine in the truest sense of the term.
Whatever you think of the political bias of Twitter's previous ownership, and there was undeniably a left-wing bias, the bias under Musk is absolutely cartoonish. And let's not forget, much of the dreaded MSM is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is not exactly known for his soft, lefty views.
I guess we'll also have to agree to disagree that a "Wild West" of political discourse is a good thing.
Yes, we will have to agree to disagree as I am a free speech absolutionist and you apparently you are not. The "not" part is the slippery slope of tyranny as somebody then has to decide what speech is allowed and what is not, and those with the power to do this will always side with what benefits them.
If your issue is Musk's posting on X... well he owns the platform and you can block and ignore what he posts if you don't like it. You can also block and ignore Taylor Swift's posts if your don't like them.
The Wild West of political discourse is basically 1A protected free speech.
"Yes, we will have to agree to disagree as I am a free speech absolutionist and you apparently you are not. "
As Musk himself has pointed out, there is a difference between freedom of speech, which I wholeheartedly support, and freedom of reach. Never mind the unfettered, artificial boosting of speech that serves your agenda by manipulating the algorithms of the platform you own.
Watching people who have been convinced it's noble to uncritically support the increasingly fascist lies of a billionaire who doesn't care if they live or die, say things like, "just block him if you don't like it," while he ruins millions of lives is an absolute trip.
Speech, especially when you've bought your way into control of the US government, has consequences.
Musk is talented and qualified in this role. Compared to the junk we typically see appointed to roles in government, he is a breath of fresh air.
But I certainly agree with you that manipulating algorithms is counter to free speech. Google search, for example, is largely sanitized to a Democrat worldview.
With respect your comment that Musk bought his way in, there is great irony in what DOGE has brought to the surface is a human-level “algorithm” that is the billions in government dark money that has served to manipulate speech… what is allowed and common, and what is censored.
“ With respect your comment that Musk bought his way in, there is great irony in what DOGE has brought to the surface is a human-level “algorithm” that is the billions in government dark money that has served to manipulate speech…”
Wait, what are you talking about here? Please be specific.
Also, Musk has demonstrated several times that he doesn’t understand the systems or departments he’s toying with.
“$50 million in condoms for Hamas,” claiming to have saved $8 billion on a government contract when it was actually $8 million (this was the single biggest line item in DOGE’s alleged savings), failing to understand how the social security database works and therefore claim that millions of 150-year-olds are claiming handouts, accidentally exposing confidential information on the DOGE website, gutting government departments that employ, primarily, military veterans (not the “elites” or “deadbeats” you’ve been led to believe), and this is just off the top of my head.
And all this while Trump adds $5 trillion to the deficit in tax cuts and Musk totally ignores the trillions of dollars of waste in the military. Seriously, if your goal was to efficiently end government waste, would you start with a department that accounts for around 1% of the budget? What “talent and qualifications” are you seeing for which your source is anyone but Musk himself?
I think the lack of trust goes directly to how effective is the social media. I think people re-post stuff not because they think it is accurate, but because it "owns" their political opposition... but what they actually believe that sends them to the ballot box is from other sources identified in this study. And consider that older people that tend to vote Republican trust social media even less than do younger people that tend to vote Democrat, and it is the Democrats primarily demanding censorship of social media content.
More concerning to me than social media, and this is played out over and over again with my friends that are not as well read and get their news and information from the mainstream media, is that the mainstream media is full of primarily Democrat-biased information to the point that it is really Democrat propaganda. And we also have critical social justice indoctrination, woke if you will, infesting healthcare and science... two areas with a lot of trust.
It is interesting about Haidt. He is on this kick that social media is responsible for all sort of social decay and negative health outcomes. I argue that social media is just a conduit for it to be more viral, but the decay is coming from our traditional institutions beginning with the education system.
"I argue that social media is just a conduit for it to be more viral:
If you're arguing that social media is a conduit for "social decay and negative health outcomes" to be more viral, aren't you, at the very least, arguing against social media? We can debate root causes, obviously social media doesn't operate in a vacuum, but the virality is a problem all by itself, no?
This is like arguing that the problem with AIDS isn't lots of people having unprotected sex, but the virus itself. You're not entirely wrong, but you might be missing an important point.
I will dig around. As someone that consumes and lot of information, I commit things to memory that I have adsorbed. Rarely am I corrected when I have a strong sense of accuracy, but it happens.
Haha, my irritation with off-topic, unevidenced, and/or tautological arguments, isn't related to the outrage I'm talking about in this piece. Although, I'll note, when you make arguments that actually *relate* to my articles, and I respond without a shred of irritation, you rarely reply.
I believe that I have read of many studies that prove that people are pretty good at filtering out the bullshit from social media "news" feeds. I think what it really is... two monkey tribes flinging poo at each other. The monkeys know it is poo, but the attraction is the flinging with the hope that it hits the face of the opposing monkeys.
More important that this social media poo flinging is the ideological corruption of student minds. The outrage industry is feed and energized as these kids launch with their screwed up muffin brains and end up in positions of power and influence... where they have adopted the poo as food.
"I believe that I have read of many studies that prove that people are pretty good at filtering out the bullshit from social media "news" feeds"
Could you share some of these studies? Most of the evidence I have is polling or anecdotal, but it certainly seems that millions of people are terrible at filtering out bullshit. Partly because, like all of us depending on the topic, they don't know enough about complex topics to differentiate between fact and fiction.
Here is an example... https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/357446/young-people-rely-social-media-don-trust.aspx
I think the establishment is pushing this notion that misinformation is a threat to democracy is a lie because the establishment wants to stop opposition to the establishment.
Thanks a lot for this, that's really interesting. Also thanks for being one of the very few people who provides data to back up their claims.
Although it's worth noting that this doesn't say anything about filtering, this is about how trustworthy people think various institutions are, not how good people are at distinguishing between true and false information.
The sticking point for me is more about how people decide what to trust and what percentage of the time they get it right. What do people actually earn when they say they're doing their own research"?
It's also worth noting the influence of heuristics like availability and recency bias. If you hear a lie enough times, it's hard to resist the conclusion that there must be something to it. And it's easy to trick people into drawing broad conclusions about groups based on very small sample sizes or tiny fragments of evidence.
The Springfield pet eating hoax was a good example of this. Lots of people believed this by the time it had been floating around for a while. And it was used to back a broader anti+immigrant sentiment, but it was based on literally nothing but a couple of out of context pictures and a random guy saying he saw a van with "hundreds of cats" in it.
I'm reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" at the moment and he's got some interesting research on this that I might fold into an article.👍
It’s on my book stack. I was just eyeballing it the other day as I whizzed past on my way to my next task. Would love to read your thoughts on it.
I just remembered, that social media was more an indication of influence before Musk purchased Twitter because the MSM used Twitter as a central opinion generator that then led to MSM reporting and back and forth. I am not sure if Bluesky is replacing it because I don't go there. But since Twitter changed to Musk, and Zukerberg committed to free speech, other than Google still promoting the left view in its algorithms, social media and the Internet in general is back to more wild west.
Frankly, Joe Rogan and Substack and other sources are taking over for influence and that is a good thing.
"But since Twitter changed to Musk, and Zuckerberg committed to free speech, other than Google still promoting the left view in its algorithms, social media and the Internet in general is back to more wild west."
I will never, ever understand how people can decry political bias and then imply that Twitter improved under Musk. Nobody who actually cares about political bias (as opposed to simply wanting "their side" to win the bias wars) could possibly look at Twitter today as anything but a giant step backwards. It is a propaganda machine in the truest sense of the term.
Whatever you think of the political bias of Twitter's previous ownership, and there was undeniably a left-wing bias, the bias under Musk is absolutely cartoonish. And let's not forget, much of the dreaded MSM is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is not exactly known for his soft, lefty views.
I guess we'll also have to agree to disagree that a "Wild West" of political discourse is a good thing.
Yes, we will have to agree to disagree as I am a free speech absolutionist and you apparently you are not. The "not" part is the slippery slope of tyranny as somebody then has to decide what speech is allowed and what is not, and those with the power to do this will always side with what benefits them.
If your issue is Musk's posting on X... well he owns the platform and you can block and ignore what he posts if you don't like it. You can also block and ignore Taylor Swift's posts if your don't like them.
The Wild West of political discourse is basically 1A protected free speech.
"Yes, we will have to agree to disagree as I am a free speech absolutionist and you apparently you are not. "
As Musk himself has pointed out, there is a difference between freedom of speech, which I wholeheartedly support, and freedom of reach. Never mind the unfettered, artificial boosting of speech that serves your agenda by manipulating the algorithms of the platform you own.
Watching people who have been convinced it's noble to uncritically support the increasingly fascist lies of a billionaire who doesn't care if they live or die, say things like, "just block him if you don't like it," while he ruins millions of lives is an absolute trip.
Speech, especially when you've bought your way into control of the US government, has consequences.
Musk is talented and qualified in this role. Compared to the junk we typically see appointed to roles in government, he is a breath of fresh air.
But I certainly agree with you that manipulating algorithms is counter to free speech. Google search, for example, is largely sanitized to a Democrat worldview.
With respect your comment that Musk bought his way in, there is great irony in what DOGE has brought to the surface is a human-level “algorithm” that is the billions in government dark money that has served to manipulate speech… what is allowed and common, and what is censored.
“ With respect your comment that Musk bought his way in, there is great irony in what DOGE has brought to the surface is a human-level “algorithm” that is the billions in government dark money that has served to manipulate speech…”
Wait, what are you talking about here? Please be specific.
Also, Musk has demonstrated several times that he doesn’t understand the systems or departments he’s toying with.
“$50 million in condoms for Hamas,” claiming to have saved $8 billion on a government contract when it was actually $8 million (this was the single biggest line item in DOGE’s alleged savings), failing to understand how the social security database works and therefore claim that millions of 150-year-olds are claiming handouts, accidentally exposing confidential information on the DOGE website, gutting government departments that employ, primarily, military veterans (not the “elites” or “deadbeats” you’ve been led to believe), and this is just off the top of my head.
And all this while Trump adds $5 trillion to the deficit in tax cuts and Musk totally ignores the trillions of dollars of waste in the military. Seriously, if your goal was to efficiently end government waste, would you start with a department that accounts for around 1% of the budget? What “talent and qualifications” are you seeing for which your source is anyone but Musk himself?
If you have the time, and are not too triggered by Tucker, you need to watch all of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtXQNDJJm4
I think the lack of trust goes directly to how effective is the social media. I think people re-post stuff not because they think it is accurate, but because it "owns" their political opposition... but what they actually believe that sends them to the ballot box is from other sources identified in this study. And consider that older people that tend to vote Republican trust social media even less than do younger people that tend to vote Democrat, and it is the Democrats primarily demanding censorship of social media content.
More concerning to me than social media, and this is played out over and over again with my friends that are not as well read and get their news and information from the mainstream media, is that the mainstream media is full of primarily Democrat-biased information to the point that it is really Democrat propaganda. And we also have critical social justice indoctrination, woke if you will, infesting healthcare and science... two areas with a lot of trust.
It is interesting about Haidt. He is on this kick that social media is responsible for all sort of social decay and negative health outcomes. I argue that social media is just a conduit for it to be more viral, but the decay is coming from our traditional institutions beginning with the education system.
"I argue that social media is just a conduit for it to be more viral:
If you're arguing that social media is a conduit for "social decay and negative health outcomes" to be more viral, aren't you, at the very least, arguing against social media? We can debate root causes, obviously social media doesn't operate in a vacuum, but the virality is a problem all by itself, no?
This is like arguing that the problem with AIDS isn't lots of people having unprotected sex, but the virus itself. You're not entirely wrong, but you might be missing an important point.
I will dig around. As someone that consumes and lot of information, I commit things to memory that I have adsorbed. Rarely am I corrected when I have a strong sense of accuracy, but it happens.
Funniest intro I've seen on Substack lol.
Excellent post again and a sadly accurate description of "discussion" on the Internet.
Interesting article.
You have been outraged at some of my comments to you.
Haha, my irritation with off-topic, unevidenced, and/or tautological arguments, isn't related to the outrage I'm talking about in this piece. Although, I'll note, when you make arguments that actually *relate* to my articles, and I respond without a shred of irritation, you rarely reply.