How a small but vocal minority of social media users distort reality and sow division
How a small but vocal minority of social media users distort reality and sow division
Researchers at New York University have concluded that social media is not an accurate reflection of society, but more like a funhouse mirror distorted by a small but vocal minority of extreme outliers. It's a finding that has special resonance this election season. John Yang speaks with psychology ...
Researchers at New York University have concluded that social media is not an accurate reflection of society, but more like a funhouse mirror distorted by a small but vocal minority of extreme outliers. It's a finding that has special resonance this election season. John Yang speaks with psychology professor Jay Van Bavel, one of the authors of the paper that reported the research, to learn more.
It's starting to feel more like we shouldn't allow political ads or discussions online without restrictions. Foreign actors and idiots are too quick to spread misinformation. If people want to get an idea of what others believe in, then go talk with other real people. This feels more like kids learning how to socialize from online games. People are dicks online, and you can interact with people that way in real life
Honestly I've started to start any political conversations with someone who's misinformed like: "Oh you're think they're eating dogs? I saw that too, but it isn't news. It's political ads. You know? Propaganda? But they are selling you fear instead. Turns out it's just fiction, lol. They tricked me too."
It generally opens up a legit conversation, and the person is less defensive since it's us talking about something else. Instead of me vs them.
Who are this "we" that should not allow political discussions online ? How would that be enforced?
Would Lemmy.world (the "foreign" social media) have to apply these US restrictions (via political pressure on it's host countries) or will the US block access to it?
Or your home instance sh.it just.works?
Do you even remotely realize how authoritarian your position is?
What I mean by that is no anonymous posting. A big issue is that you have thousands of bots pushing fake messages. It's worse with algorithms where the company can control how many people certain messages reach. But places like Lemmy and reddit aren't immune either. I still remember seeing how crazy reddit went during 2016 elections. All of a sudden a ton of pro Trump people were there. I couldn't trust a lot of news, pro or against Trump, because there would be false information posted (false anti information I bet also posted by Russian bots for this reason as well.)
As of now, we're basically allowing Russia, China and Iran to influence our citizens. That's partially why MAGA has such a an alternate view Trump. They don't ever hear the bad news about him, or just don't believe it.
It's up to everybody to keep their heads on straight, even in the social pressure ("social pressure") of a dumb comment section.
If we're relying on the individual to keep themselves correctly informed, we might be thoroughly fucked lol.
Maybe we should start pinning classes on media literacy, critical thinking/analyses to help the situation. Not even sarcasm, it genuinely might be needed as a built-in feature included in every web browser at this point.
Pardon me, but I've honestly not yet stumbled upon anything you guys describe here. Am I just not subscribed to communities doing this or something? Where do you read this kind of trash?
You find this trash on platforms that are actually popular with the general public, not Lemmy
Ahh! Okay, that explains it. Thank you!
Same here, almost everything I read on Lemmy is very left-leaning.
Honestly no idea where people are seeing these comments.