5 ms·

>fake news is actually a very small part of the picture I'm not sure that's true. Before the election at least a 3rd of news articles shared by family members

• smsm42 10y ago
  You are assuming everybody who shared those memes actually believes they are factually true, as opposed to just feeling good trash-talking somebody the (re-)poster hates.
  • jnordwick 10y ago
    Or people sharing them saying "look how fake this is"
    • learc83 10y ago
      Not the case in my situation. Unless my Facebook circle is a complete outlier full of morons, fake news is a huge problem among older conservatives.
      • jnordwick 10y ago
        Yes, because we can generalize off of your specific example. It clearly is representative of all sharing.
        • learc83 10y ago
          Since you're responding to a thread about my specific example... I'm also willing to donate $100 to a charity of your choice if you can find evidence that a significant portion, (let's say more than 25%) of fake news being shared on Facebook is just people doing it to say "look how fake this is."
          • jnordwick 10y ago
            What you are asking is impossible to my knowledge. I don't know of any tracking for why people share or the political affiliation of those that shared it. This also means you argument is purely conjecture too.
            • learc83 10y ago
              Of course my argument is conjecture. I based it solely on my sample size of a few hundred Facebook friends--clearly stated. Absent other evidence to the contrary, that is enough to convince me that people sharing fake news mostly believe it. If you have some other evidence to present--please go ahead. Do the majority of your over 45, conservative Facebook friends and family regularly share fake news just to point out that it's fake?
  • learc83 10y ago
    If someone says they believe a story and spreads the story as factual news to their friends, it doesn't really matter whether they actually believed it in the first place. Eventually the story spreads to people who actually believe it and will take action based on it. A large percentage of my family truly believes Bernie Sanders drives a $100k sports car because they read it on Facebook. They believe that Obama's mother-in-law is getting a pension for acting as the White House babysitter. Some of them even believe that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya. They believe these things because of they read fake news stories on Facebook. It's self reinforcing. They vaguely dislike someone; they read a fake negative story on facebook about the person; they believe it because they already dislike them; they dislike the person more because of the fake news story; they read more outrageous fake news; they believe it because it fits their now more biased opinion of the person. It's keeps going like this until they hate the person and will believe almost anything negative you say about them.
    • smsm42 10y ago
      How do you know they "spread it as factual news"? As far as I know, Facebook doesn't have separate setting for "spreading as factual news" vs "spreading as funny meme trash-talking that idiot I hate". It looks exactly the same. > It's keeps going like this until they hate the person and will believe almost anything negative you say about them. Like that "Trump is afraid of stairs" story that CNN featured recently? ;)
      • learc83 10y ago
        It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference if you're a human and not a computer program. If I say "smsm42's mom is fat", or "smsm42 is an idiot" that's trash talking. If I say "smsm42 defrauded the US government by awarding his mother-in-law a pension for watching his kids", or "smsm42 passed a law that give Muslims free health insurance because their religion prevents them from paying for it", or "smsm42 wasn't born in the country he says he was born in and I have proof that his birth certificate is fake"--that's fake news.
        • smsm42 10y ago
• gdulli 10y ago
  A guy fired three shots in the pizzagate restaurant because he thought it was true and wanted to "investigate." Fortunately no one was hurt.
  • cat199 10y ago
    I see your 3 shots and raise you 60 cruise missiles