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Is it actually true that more are correct now than in the past?

by aljones 10y ago

Alex3917 10y ago
The field of Organizational Behavior has done research on 'grapevine communication', and found that most rumors are true. And this was decades ago: http://tqr.nova.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/singh3.pdf http://tqr.nova.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/singh3.pdf What's changed is that we have more leaked documents, more ability for whistleblowers to mass broadcast anonymously, and more tools for immediately uncovering discrepancies in people's stories. So the rumor mill probably is a little more accurate than in prior eras, but it was probably already reasonably reliable even before the advent of WikiLeaks or whatever. The other difference is that people now have a lot more incentive to turn to the rumor mill (e.g. r/dncleaks, r/wikileaks, r/the_donald) since the mainstream media has been blatantly ignoring a lot of this stuff, and with the advent of Facebook they can spread whatever they find a lot faster.
- mark_l_watson 10y ago
  +1 for the criticism of mainstream media - it is awful and apparently getting worse quickly. I sometimes have to turn to foreign news like Russia Times (RT), Al Jazeera, and the Israeli Haaretz news (and news from many other countries) to see news stories that are effectively blocked out in the USA. I do look with appropriate scepticism at all foreign and domestic news sources, but when major stories are not covered in domestic news sources there is no choice but to look around the web. It drives me a little crazy when friends who watch MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. think that they are getting a full and accurate picture of world events.
fmihaila 10y ago
More were correct in the past than was believed at the time.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
More are provably correct than in the past. Um, that is, numerically more are provably correct, not more as a percent. There are far more conspiracy theories (of which I am aware) than there were in the past. I don't know that the fraction that are provably correct is any higher now.

Is it actually true that more are correct now than in the past?

by aljones 10y ago

Is it actually true that more are correct now than in the past?

The field of Organizational Behavior has done research on 'grapevine communication', and found that most rumors are true. And this was decades ago: http://tqr.nova.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/singh3.pdf http://tqr.nova.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/singh3.pdf What's changed is that we have more leaked documents, more ability for whistleblowers to mass broadcast anonymously, and more tools for immediately uncovering discrepancies in people's stories. So the rumor mill probably is a little more accurate than in prior eras, but it was probably already reasonably reliable even before the advent of WikiLeaks or whatever. The other difference is that people now have a lot more incentive to turn to the rumor mill (e.g. r/dncleaks, r/wikileaks, r/the_donald) since the mainstream media has been blatantly ignoring a lot of this stuff, and with the advent of Facebook they can spread whatever they find a lot faster.

mark_l_watson 10y ago
+1 for the criticism of mainstream media - it is awful and apparently getting worse quickly. I sometimes have to turn to foreign news like Russia Times (RT), Al Jazeera, and the Israeli Haaretz news (and news from many other countries) to see news stories that are effectively blocked out in the USA. I do look with appropriate scepticism at all foreign and domestic news sources, but when major stories are not covered in domestic news sources there is no choice but to look around the web. It drives me a little crazy when friends who watch MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. think that they are getting a full and accurate picture of world events.

fmihaila 10y ago

More were correct in the past than was believed at the time.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

More are provably correct than in the past. Um, that is, numerically more are provably correct, not more as a percent. There are far more conspiracy theories (of which I am aware) than there were in the past. I don't know that the fraction that are provably correct is any higher now.