8 ms·

Media is complicit in this, not the victim. By presenting "both sides" equally in many contexts, they give the false impression that the case of the denialists

by danhak 6y ago

Media is complicit in this, not the victim. By presenting "both sides" equally in many contexts, they give the false impression that the case of the denialists is equally strong. Just because there are two sides does not mean there are two equally valid sides. And presenting them as such is a form of bias. Quite a pernicious one. This is common practice in all sorts of stories. Journalists are trained to solicit / include some counterpoint or naysaying voice, no matter the topic. Even if the story is otherwise uncontroversial.

macspoofing 6y ago
>By presenting "both sides" equally in many contexts This was the mantra of the new atheist/skeptic movement of the early 2010s - that it wasn't worth to present the other side because the other side is just wrong. Given how this mantra is applied today where 'the other side' should not be heard from or platformed or is just plain evil, I'd rather hear both sides, even if that means I get to hear about creationism or climate change denial. I don't want the media or tech companies to be the arbiter on what is and isn't reasonable to discuss. Having Jack Dorsey or some intern at some fact check org decide for me what is and isn't reasonable is much worse than merely hearing from a creationist why creationism should be taught in science class.
- mrlala 6y ago
  I mean, do you propose equal time be given to evolution & creationism then or what? I would rather students spend 99.9% of the time on evolution and yeah I guess you can spend the 0.1% time as footnote of what crazy people believe in if you really want.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >I mean, do you propose equal time be given to evolution & creationism then or what? I support journalists making an effort to present both sides even if one side is unreasonable, because the alternative is they just decide for me what I should and should not be exposed to. That, to me, is much much worse.
    - danhak 6y ago
      Is there any place you draw the line? Should 9/11 truthers be given equal time? Holocaust deniers? QAnon / Pizzagate conspiracists? Obama birthers?
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        >Should we give them equal time? Why not? The standard I advocate for is for journalists to make an effort to present both sides. There will always be a level of editorializing and they will get it wrong from time to time, but at least they are committed to the principle and there is underlying respect for the audience to make up their own mind. Not like what you seem to advocating for - where you want the media to make the decisions for you to what you're exposed to .. because god forbid the media 'platforms' someone that may actually change your mind. So let me ask you because I am curious: What is your limiting principle? At what point do YOU stop delegating to some doofus anchor what you should and shouldn't be exposed to?
    - regularfry 6y ago
      It's never "both sides" unless someone's actively trying to push a wedge issue for political gain. It's almost always "lots of varied ways to be wrong, and one way we're pretty sure is right" and if you try to present them all, the one that's right gets drowned out in the volume of dross. Journalism must be curation or there's no point.
    - freen 6y ago
      Do you have some cycles to spare on... Time cube Chemtrails Flat earth Lizard people Heavens Gate Time wave theory Etc. Should we give them equal time? Why not?
      - vkou 6y ago
        Don't be ridiculous. My preferred political party does not have a vested financial interest in those theories, so of course they shouldn't get equal airtime.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    "Equal time" derives from the days of media broadcast over radio waves, where every broadcast came at the expense of some other one because there was a finite amount of broadcast radio spectrum. It's irrelevant to on-demand content delivery methods like the internet, where you can carry everything at once.
- jdc 6y ago
  Having Jack Dorsey or some intern at some fact check org decide for me what is and isn't reasonable is much worse[…] No one's saying that he should, so this is a strawman. Also let's not conflate social media (dumb-pipes for following anyone) with newspapers and cable "news" (editorial, selective).
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >No one's saying that he should, so this is a strawman. What are you talking about? Where have you been since 2016? Democrats and media is pushing Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to increase censorship of right-wing viewpoints. >Also let's not conflate social media (dumb-pipes for following anyone) with newspapers and cable "news" (editorial, selective). Social media is exerting more and more editorial control and acting more like a publisher and not a platform. I get that there will always be some of standards that not every person will like (since those companies do not want their networks to be used for crime or spam, for example), but the way Twitter and Facebook shut down the Hunter Biden is insane and I don't understand why nobody is not bothered by it.
laurent92 6y ago
I used to believe in climate change, then I studied feminism in depth. I don’t believe in climate change anymore. I’ve learnt 3 things: - It is possible to fake studies and blatantly ignore one side of the problem. I don’t count anymore how many studies claim that mostly women are victims of violence, and when you dive into the paper, you notice the study has been done by studying a panel of... girls mostly, and the scientist didn’t even care enough to weigh the results. This kind of extremely major problem is in all papers that conclude violence is one-sided, and those that include both genders (with seriousness, not males from prison vs women from workplace, as I have also seen) find equal violence from both genders. - It is possible to get these papers peer reviewed, and to scale these peer reviews enough that an entire scientific field is dedicated in find proof that a hypothesis is right while never studying the opposite. In fact, a chapter of Mein Kampf passed a journal’s gatekeeping, of course after replacing « Jew » with « male ». I have been pointed to decent papers that studied genders, but they are quite rare in the domain, if you just sample from the general pool, all have incredible flaws for scientists. - No-one applies the scientific method. It is possible to do such bad journalism as to persuade an entire country that the wage gap is 25 to 30% and that it is the effect of a conspiration against women, even though everyone can notice around them that most men would defend women even if they were wrong. The real % is generally written at the bottom of the article, in the paragraph before conclusion, so nobody reads it and the masses rest persuaded of a wrong figure. It is possible to fake an entire domain of science and have real scientists, public-domain people, governments, doctors, journalists and masses to say the same, false, verifiably false, thing, and literally beat any dissenting opinion until they shut up. The funny thing is everyone can notice around them how many fighters are ready to help protect women, so that would at least tip off that figures don’t match reality. As a result, I had to reassess « science for the masses ». Things I’m being told by journalists that « are certain » (« It is proven: Women are more clever than men ») can be verifiably false and would still be published nationally (the source of the article about women being more clever was a scientific paper finding an upside in one category, weighing it against error distribution, and signing off with « Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether one gender is better at task type X than the other »). If anyone wants to try this experience, try becoming expert in a domain that is in the news, and check whether scientists account for basic facts when they find « results ». I’m sorry, it may be possible that climate change is real, it is just that we have no proof of it, except by people who also claim the feminist science is true. As such, people ask me to « believe in » climate change, and blindly trust data coming from government-paid studies that also find blatantly erroneous data about genders. And this, people, is what it costs to push false narratives.
tomp 6y ago
I don’t think “both sides” is the only issue... Another is also the politization of issues... if you first argue against climate change, and then you argue against meat because of climate change, then I know you’re just using it to push your preferred ideology. How can I be sure you’re also not pushing climate change itself just as ideology? Note: I agree that less meat is a solution (or part of a solution), but unacceptable to push it as the solution, instead of e.g. general carbon taxation...
FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
They also give the false impression that the number of sides is equal to two.

by danhak 6y ago

macspoofing 6y ago

>By presenting "both sides" equally in many contexts This was the mantra of the new atheist/skeptic movement of the early 2010s - that it wasn't worth to present the other side because the other side is just wrong. Given how this mantra is applied today where 'the other side' should not be heard from or platformed or is just plain evil, I'd rather hear both sides, even if that means I get to hear about creationism or climate change denial. I don't want the media or tech companies to be the arbiter on what is and isn't reasonable to discuss. Having Jack Dorsey or some intern at some fact check org decide for me what is and isn't reasonable is much worse than merely hearing from a creationist why creationism should be taught in science class.

mrlala 6y ago
I mean, do you propose equal time be given to evolution & creationism then or what? I would rather students spend 99.9% of the time on evolution and yeah I guess you can spend the 0.1% time as footnote of what crazy people believe in if you really want.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >I mean, do you propose equal time be given to evolution & creationism then or what? I support journalists making an effort to present both sides even if one side is unreasonable, because the alternative is they just decide for me what I should and should not be exposed to. That, to me, is much much worse.
  - danhak 6y ago
    Is there any place you draw the line? Should 9/11 truthers be given equal time? Holocaust deniers? QAnon / Pizzagate conspiracists? Obama birthers?
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >Should we give them equal time? Why not? The standard I advocate for is for journalists to make an effort to present both sides. There will always be a level of editorializing and they will get it wrong from time to time, but at least they are committed to the principle and there is underlying respect for the audience to make up their own mind. Not like what you seem to advocating for - where you want the media to make the decisions for you to what you're exposed to .. because god forbid the media 'platforms' someone that may actually change your mind. So let me ask you because I am curious: What is your limiting principle? At what point do YOU stop delegating to some doofus anchor what you should and shouldn't be exposed to?
  - regularfry 6y ago
    It's never "both sides" unless someone's actively trying to push a wedge issue for political gain. It's almost always "lots of varied ways to be wrong, and one way we're pretty sure is right" and if you try to present them all, the one that's right gets drowned out in the volume of dross. Journalism must be curation or there's no point.
  - freen 6y ago
    Do you have some cycles to spare on... Time cube Chemtrails Flat earth Lizard people Heavens Gate Time wave theory Etc. Should we give them equal time? Why not?
    - vkou 6y ago
      Don't be ridiculous. My preferred political party does not have a vested financial interest in those theories, so of course they shouldn't get equal airtime.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  "Equal time" derives from the days of media broadcast over radio waves, where every broadcast came at the expense of some other one because there was a finite amount of broadcast radio spectrum. It's irrelevant to on-demand content delivery methods like the internet, where you can carry everything at once.
jdc 6y ago
Having Jack Dorsey or some intern at some fact check org decide for me what is and isn't reasonable is much worse[…] No one's saying that he should, so this is a strawman. Also let's not conflate social media (dumb-pipes for following anyone) with newspapers and cable "news" (editorial, selective).
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >No one's saying that he should, so this is a strawman. What are you talking about? Where have you been since 2016? Democrats and media is pushing Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to increase censorship of right-wing viewpoints. >Also let's not conflate social media (dumb-pipes for following anyone) with newspapers and cable "news" (editorial, selective). Social media is exerting more and more editorial control and acting more like a publisher and not a platform. I get that there will always be some of standards that not every person will like (since those companies do not want their networks to be used for crime or spam, for example), but the way Twitter and Facebook shut down the Hunter Biden is insane and I don't understand why nobody is not bothered by it.

laurent92 6y ago

I used to believe in climate change, then I studied feminism in depth. I don’t believe in climate change anymore. I’ve learnt 3 things: - It is possible to fake studies and blatantly ignore one side of the problem. I don’t count anymore how many studies claim that mostly women are victims of violence, and when you dive into the paper, you notice the study has been done by studying a panel of... girls mostly, and the scientist didn’t even care enough to weigh the results. This kind of extremely major problem is in all papers that conclude violence is one-sided, and those that include both genders (with seriousness, not males from prison vs women from workplace, as I have also seen) find equal violence from both genders. - It is possible to get these papers peer reviewed, and to scale these peer reviews enough that an entire scientific field is dedicated in find proof that a hypothesis is right while never studying the opposite. In fact, a chapter of Mein Kampf passed a journal’s gatekeeping, of course after replacing « Jew » with « male ». I have been pointed to decent papers that studied genders, but they are quite rare in the domain, if you just sample from the general pool, all have incredible flaws for scientists. - No-one applies the scientific method. It is possible to do such bad journalism as to persuade an entire country that the wage gap is 25 to 30% and that it is the effect of a conspiration against women, even though everyone can notice around them that most men would defend women even if they were wrong. The real % is generally written at the bottom of the article, in the paragraph before conclusion, so nobody reads it and the masses rest persuaded of a wrong figure. It is possible to fake an entire domain of science and have real scientists, public-domain people, governments, doctors, journalists and masses to say the same, false, verifiably false, thing, and literally beat any dissenting opinion until they shut up. The funny thing is everyone can notice around them how many fighters are ready to help protect women, so that would at least tip off that figures don’t match reality. As a result, I had to reassess « science for the masses ». Things I’m being told by journalists that « are certain » (« It is proven: Women are more clever than men ») can be verifiably false and would still be published nationally (the source of the article about women being more clever was a scientific paper finding an upside in one category, weighing it against error distribution, and signing off with « Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether one gender is better at task type X than the other »). If anyone wants to try this experience, try becoming expert in a domain that is in the news, and check whether scientists account for basic facts when they find « results ». I’m sorry, it may be possible that climate change is real, it is just that we have no proof of it, except by people who also claim the feminist science is true. As such, people ask me to « believe in » climate change, and blindly trust data coming from government-paid studies that also find blatantly erroneous data about genders. And this, people, is what it costs to push false narratives.

tomp 6y ago

I don’t think “both sides” is the only issue... Another is also the politization of issues... if you first argue against climate change, and then you argue against meat because of climate change, then I know you’re just using it to push your preferred ideology. How can I be sure you’re also not pushing climate change itself just as ideology? Note: I agree that less meat is a solution (or part of a solution), but unacceptable to push it as the solution, instead of e.g. general carbon taxation...

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago

They also give the false impression that the number of sides is equal to two.