A personal story about fake news
I had an interesting conversation with my housemate last night, which opened my eyes to just how easily fake news gets into ordinary people's minds.
We were discussing an episode of 'The Orville' we had just watched, and conversation shifted topics (as it does), and we ended up talking about free speech and political correctness - and he told me, quite matter-of-factly, that at least one local school had removed all books which referred to "boys" or "girls" from its library, and that other schools wanted to ban children from referring to themselves as "boys" or "girls". This was part of a politically correct drive to remove all references to gender, so that noone is "male" or "female".
My housemate is not a raving lunatic. He's not a rabid fascist or alt-right person. He's just an ordinary Aussie guy, going about his ordinary life, with no malice to anyone.
But his extended family watches certain TV channels and reads certain newspapers, and he had picked up this little nugget of knowledge from a TV show one of them was watching.
We discussed the matter, and I told him that what he had just said is fake news. I explained that I didn't think he was wrong, but that his sources were wrong. He wouldn't believe me - to the point where he demanded that we go to a computer and double-check it.
It didn't take me long to find both the newspaper articles and television segments spreading this fake news, and the other sources debunking it (because I knew what I was looking for). It turns out that some ivory-tower academics had done a study which showed that making little girls play with "hyper-feminised toys like Barbies" was reinforcing certain sexist stereotypes, and maybe that should be changed. That was it. But certain newspapers (owned by a certain media tycoon) had twisted this into a scare story involving evil teachers who were coming to steal your children's identities by stopping them from being boys and girls and removing everything that said "boys" and "girls" from libraries - and other news outlets had picked up this story and run with it, adding their own touches as it bounced from one outlet to another.
As soon as I showed him the debunking sources, he accepted them. He got a bit defensive, and deflected blame on to his family and the news - but he believed the truth when I showed it to him. He's not stupid or malicious, just misinformed. I agreed with him that it wasn't his fault. As he said, most normal people aren't like me, reading deep into the news and double-checking what they say. Most people just read the paper or watch the TV and accept what they're told.
Fake news is so easy to spread. Most people don't question their news sources. If a newspaper or newsreader tells them something, they believe it because it's coming from a supposedly reliable source.
Indeed. They especially don't question those sources when the person sharing the fake news with them is a close family-member or friend. In my experience, most of my exposure to fake news on the internet comes from older family members and friends on Facebook. Studies have shown that people are more likely to believe news from questionable new sources when shared by someone they trust. I could see a lot of people not interested in seeking out this kind of stuff getting entangled by nutty aunts and uncles.
https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/trust-social-media/#implications
My housemate doesn't use social media at all. He has no interest in it. He deleted his Facebook account a couple of years ago, thus removing any contact with the social internet. He also doesn't read news or watch news or have any news sources.
But he does talk to family members, who sometimes tell him what they heard or read on the news. And he has no reason to disbelieve them. Why would you? If your aunt / uncle / mother / father / sister / brother / grandmother/grandfather tells you they heard "X" on the news, you'll believe them. What reason do you have to disbelieve them?
This obviously extends to social media: if someone you know and trust "tells" you something, you'll believe them. Why wouldn't you?
I believe they heard it, but I'm inherently skeptical of any new knowledge. A healthy dose of skepticism has been argued since ancient Greece was the center of civilization, but I think it's application has never been more relevant than today because false ideas are no longer spread by raving lunatics in a town square - technology has enabled the spread of ideas while simultaneously reducing the meta-discussion on the source of said ideas.
That's you, though. The whole point of my post is that most people are not like that. Most people just accept what they're told.
Apologies, the way the post is worded this was not clear.
Either way I think we need people to have a healthy amount of skepticism nowadays.
I described the person at the centre of the story as "ordinary". I placed him in a milieu of people like himself, who just hear and accept news without question. I pointed out that he said that someone like me, who reads deeply into news, is not normal. I summarised by saying things like "Most people just read the paper or watch the TV and accept what they're told." and "Most people don't question their news sources."
I'm not sure how much clearer I could have been. The point of my story is that most people do not think critically about news, which is why they accept fake news as easily as true news.
Where did you point this out? I don't see it.
Again, maybe I'm missing it, but where is this ?
The part that confused me was the following:
In all of these examples you're asking a rhetorical question, but potentially pointing it at the user reading. It's unclear whether this is a statement of how you imagine he thinks or something to be turned back upon the reader to discuss.
Ah. I see the confusion. When you said "post", I thought you were referring to my main post at the top of the page, not a comment.
Neither. I'm using the "generic you" to encourage you, the reader, to put yourself in the shoes of someone unlike yourself. Imagine you are a person who trusts your family members and news sources. Would a person like this question their family members when those family members tell them something they heard on the news? If you were such a person, you would behave the same way.
I'm aware now that you are using the generic you, my point was just that it was unclear from your reply whether it was a rhetorical using the generic you or whether it was a rhetorical pointed at the reader inviting a discussion and reply.
The number of fake news articles shared to me by family members they found on Facebook is alarming! I've always reiterated that they should always question the source behind everything they read, and what credibility it has to offer.
He may not be stupid, but he did something stupid (in accepting a fairly outrageous claim at face value, even from a trusted source). Thing is, we do stupid stuff all the time, even the supposedly more enlightened among us. If we come to terms with that, we can inculcate habits to mitigate it, and possibly change society for our collective benefit... but that might cut into TV ratings, profits, and the like, so I'm not holding my breath.
I don't pretend to be an expert in human psychology, or education, or fake news!
However, my uneducated uninformed personal opinion is that the most important thing is to inculcate in people a desire to learn, rather than providing them with methods to learn. As the old proverb goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. There's no point in making it more convenient for people to spot fake news if they won't use the feature. If someone doesn't think they're being fed fake news, and doesn't want to know the backstory to what they've just heard/read, why would they go check if they're being fed fake news? If they have no desire to learn more, why would they make the effort to learn more? The problem with fake news entering the mainstream (as opposed to reinforcing true believers' existing beliefs) is that people just accept what they're told, without questioning it.
We need to teach people to be curious, and to think critically. We need to make people care about learning.
EDIT: Typo.
I wholeheartedly agree. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if primary education in America included critical thinking, civics, and a little philosophy that covered many different religions. When I was in high school there was still one year of civics in the curriculum. I wonder if it got the axe along with music class.
It is really interesting, myself, my family, and my friends have fallen to the trap of fake news. I always try my best to check what news org. its from, but honestly, I don't think people should have to check what news org. it is coming from. Let me emphasize 'should have to', I think they should, but it should not be required in my opinion. News orgs. should strive to write quality reports, its the same as all professions, as a Computer Scientist I should strive to write the best code I can. An artist should try to produce quality work. This is even more important when you're work directly impacts peoples' lives.
The problem is that money is an extremely strong driving factor. Many fields are corrupted by the pursuit of money. Medicine is a great example of this, with snake oil sellers existing throughout the entirety of history.
I think today the best thing to do is to work from an assumption of discredit. Just like you should be skeptical if a random person on the street offered to fix your plumbing, you should be skeptical of news coming from a source you don't recognize.
And if you do this with your friends enough, they'll stop being your friends.
EDIT: To be clear, I think what OP did was a good thing. I just wish people wouldn't immediately shut out people who point out when things are wrong as it's counterproductive. There are, however, ways to lead others to water (as Algernon stated) but it's frustrating that we can't all just be rational and accept data without letting our egos get offended.
Nope! My friends value my honesty and my intelligence and my knowledge about these things. It's all about how you present it. If you run around like an arrogant teenager telling everyone they're wrong and stupid... you'll lose friends. If you present it maturely and in a non-malicious and non-threatening way, people are more open to it. (And guess who was the arrogant teenager who had to learn this lesson...?)
Of course, I choose not to be friends with people who aren't at least open to hearing something new.
Great for you (sincerely)! I am trying to have more friends like this :)
I made a pithy comment and didn't really provide the context for it. I have so much going on, sometimes I just need to NOT comment until I can give it the proper due.
So while you're surrounded yourself with some great folks, what you described is apparently not the norm. I ran across the reddit post yesterday in r/science that talks about a "shoot the messenger" phenomenon.
Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/bm3zu4/shooting_the_messenger_is_a_psychological_reality/
So that's the larger context for my cynical comment.
This was not my take.
You are. Very much so.
"Ordinary" means exactly what it says: "ordinary". I'm not trying to put him down. I'm trying to point out that there's nothing extreme or unusual about him. He's not an idiot, and he's not a genius. He's not rich and he's not poor. He's not extreme in his political views. He's just a regular guy.
If you think that's condescending... that's your interpretation, not mine.
Suggest you edit this
to this
False statements tend to stick in people's minds and take significant cognitive load to contradict.
Even repeating a false statement followed by evidence against it can be harmful to propagating the lie
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'll tell my story my way. The mood I'm trying to invoke in that sentence is a sense that this was just a normal part of the conversation, wherein he told me something as ordinary and unremarkable as the sky being blue. I don't want to break that narrative by introducing a sense of judgement in that sentence. I want to convey the feeling of being in the moment, where someone says something obvious and simple.
The rest of the tale points out that this information was false.
I spent some time trying to find the fascinating articles that basically said that disproving lies often re-enforces them, not to change your mind, but because they are so interesting.
One study found that american conservatives tend to hear evidence against their views (such as global warming indeed being caused by humans), and became more convinced that their original views were correct, in spite of the evidence.
In a separate book I read it talked about how it is the fascinating stories that tend to stick in our minds. If I tell you that while the razor blade in the candy apple is a common fear, there has never been a razor blade put in a candy apple, that no one has been poisened by halloween candy given to them by a stranger, and only one child was hurt by halloween candy but it was his own father who did this... all that will stick in most peoples minds is an irrational fear of halloween candy from strangers.