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Everyone thinks the other side is wrong and therefore spreading misinformation. Plus because they believe these terrible things they must be bad people. So they

Everyone thinks the other side is wrong and therefore spreading misinformation. Plus because they believe these terrible things they must be bad people. So they're probably doing it intentionally. Therefore, the other side is always spreading disinformation.

smt88 6y ago
> Therefore, the other side is always spreading disinformation. Untrue. There are lots of issues (climate change, for example) where one side (oil companies, in thise case) is spreading information that they know is not true by paying people who claim to be neutral. The latter is what people are raging against: the weaponization of social/ad networks by disingenuous actors, like authoritarians and oil companies. When people say they want to "stop disinformation campaigns," they're not talking about sincere individuals on the opposite side of an issue.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Exactly. This sort of framing by the way is an exercise in disinformation itself.
- oji0hub 6y ago
  > The latter is what people are raging against: the weaponization of social/ad networks by disingenuous actors, like authoritarians and oil companies. It's a very optimistic view and it's certainly how things are often framed. What I've seen over the past few years though, is a very efficient filtering of the internet of almost all content that isn't left learning from all major forums and a shutting down of those that could not be filtered. Framing this as an anti mis/disinformation campaign is very clever, sometimes pointing at flagrant examples while actually censoring widely.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > What I've seen over the past few years though, is a very efficient filtering of the internet of almost all content that isn't left learning from all major forums and a shutting down of those that could not be filtered. No, you are mistaken. What is 'left leaning' in the United States would already be considered considerably right-of-center in most of the developed world, besides that, there is plenty of right leaning content out there. What has happened is that a bunch of companies decided to stop supporting some of the more batshit crazy outlets on the extreme rightwing part of the spectrum. But that doesn't mean you won't be able to read the Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator or a ton of other right leaning publications. It's just going to be a little harder to organize the next insurrection or to spread outright lies. But that's fine. Framing this as anything to do with censorship is very clever, but it really isn't. For many reasons.
    - nights192 6y ago
      I apologize, but I fail to see how the consensus view of some manner of political philosophy matters--whether right or left--as it applies to discussion and debate, insofar as justification is provided and due research applied. Again, I understand that the crux of your argument is that this discourse (that of the "crazy right wing,") is solely the fermenting ground of lies; however, I find that very difficult to believe, personally, and I believe that--while any side may develop misconceptions--exposure to these allows you to better explore your own beliefs in the face of adversity. What is crazy is a relative concept--to be cliched, homosexuality was considered a mental illness until fairly recently.
    - blub 6y ago
      Oh, there's definitely something going on, but I'm not sure that the factions can be split so easily into left-wing and right-wing, even if the political orientation correlates. Instead I would say that there's some hot button topics like immigration, racism, climate change, discrimination of all kinds, etc and there's a faction which is for more immigration, aggressively and militantly fighting racism and climate change, etc and several factions which don't agree with the above to different extents. The positions of the pro faction have become the default in mass media, to the point that the media is educating and shaping opinions more than reporting facts. Members of the against factions are typically portrayed as wicked and associated with negative labels such as nazi, right-wing (has become a slur), racist, sexist, etc and silenced or forced to grovel in order to not lose their jobs/reputation/standing, etc. This is by the way not localized to the US, instead it's visible in several (if not all) Western European countries.
- hpcjoe 6y ago
  If I, as a (non-practicing) scientist (physicist), look at the evidence for something in vogue (say climate change), and say I have trouble with some of the conclusions, then I am immediately and permanently labeled with the absolutely ridiculous "climate denier". Yet, and this is important, SCIENTISTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SKEPTICAL. Their job is to, generally, build new hypothesis, make predictions, test predictions, and not, in any way shape or form, fall in love with a theory, such that they exclude evidence that may contradict their belief. More broadly speaking, they should not believe. They should be skeptics. The facts, the arguments should win the day. Not the histrionics. Sadly, we are human. We are fallable. We see political winds that impact our funding for our research, and we avoid rocking those boats. In 1918, Einstein's theory of General Relativity was not considered the way things worked. Eddington and Einstein made a prediction about deflection of photons near the sun during and eclipse. Newton's equation gave one result, while GR gave another. Eddington made the measurements, and the rest, as they say, is history. Theories rise and fall based upon evidence. Attacks on evidence you don't like, or the source of funding for research that raises difficult questions, really doesn't help. Look up Lysenkoism for a great lesson in why following political/popular guidance can be a really bad idea for science.
  - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
    > If I, as a (non-practicing) scientist (physicist), look at the evidence for something in vogue You felt the need to identify your field of expertise there. Does this not imply that you actually do believe it matters? There is body of knowledge shared by the experts in a field that help facilitate the process by focusing efforts on productive discourse. Sure every now and then som crazy theory needs to be entertained to advance the field. But it would be a colossal waste of energy to give credence to every amateur with a dissenting view point no?
IgorPartola 6y ago
I don’t. I think you are wrong because you are just wrong :)
- oji0hub 6y ago
  Of course you think so. And the other side thinks you're wrong.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Right. My point is that I don’t believe everyone I disagree with is trying to spread misinformation. I think Occam’s razor tells me they are much more likely to simply be incompetent. Select few deliberately spread misinformation. The rest simply parrot it as the truth because they haven’t thought it out critically.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      But someone somewhere actually sits behind their computer and dreams up this stuff that then gets seeded and passed on from one gullible mind to another. That's the heart of the problem, the initiators, and what their agendas are. It's not as though memes can be easily traced back to their sources. In fact, that would be a very nice project: to trace back any kind of meme (positive, negative, disinformation, I don't care) to its origin.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        I believe these projects have been done at least to some extent. Certainly the US intelligence community has put out a few bits of information on Russian-led disinformation campaigns. QAnon has been as I understand the most difficult to trace so far because of where it originated. One of the communities I wondered about for a while was The Great Awakening. They had a way of speaking that was so over the top that I couldn’t help but wonder just how real can it be? Specifically, they keep always calling each other “patriot” the way that Soviet citizens called each other comrade. Except, in the Soviet case it was a long thing in the making while TGA popped up overnight on Reddit so where did that come from. And their way of speaking really smelled to me like there were a ton of bots there. So, can you imagine waking up one day and realize that the political identity you’ve taken on and been discussing with people you now consider friends online has been in fact handed to you by a bunch of boys? And on top of that, the very “friends” you were talking to were largely bots? That’s gotta be a rude awakening to say the least.
Terretta 6y ago
To misinform or disinform are different words for good reason.
- konjin 6y ago
  And usually chosen by the side that is throwing stones. Was it misinformation or disinformation when the CDC told us not to wear masks? They did it because they thought us dying was better than doctors dying. Which does not inspire confidence in anyone who pays attention and doesn't count themselves members of the in group worth saving according to the CDC.
- oji0hub 6y ago
  That's why I described them in different ways.
awalton 6y ago
Except, in this case, we have a society where one side is spreading very deliberate, demonstrable, objective lies, and then saying the other side is lying as a method of trying to shut down reality-based conversation. We're reaching a point where some people in our society are so poorly informed that they literally cannot make decisions that will save their lives - people are actually dying because of disinformation about injecting bleach or taking chloroquine as a cure for COVID19. We're not facing a war on "well, my opinion is that increasing minimum wage will harm businesses," or "my opinion is that we are not doing enough for workers' rights in Silicon Valley." We're okay arguing about those points, because there's actual facts either way and it's largely political. These are dissenting opinions, and they're fine to have in a society. It's healthy even to have those discussions in a moderated community setting where conversation doesn't devolve into personal insult. But that's not what we're talking about when we talk about disinformation. The war on disinformation that we are facing is on complete and total bullshit: "Anderson Cooper drinks the blood of children and eats babies" - a real QAnon conspiracy. This isn't "dissent" - it's a bald faced lie told in attempt to discredit a journalist. "But you can't prove he doesn't eat babies!" is all the evidence they need - they want to believe it, their 'thought leaders' tell them to, and so they do. The fact that we can't even get some of these people on the same page about what disinformation actually is just shows you how far down the path these people are. That's how articles like this one get written. We can't even talk about "dissent" because people are too busy trying to tell us lies about facts, and distorting the very definition of disinformation to allow space for their lies. How long are you going to stay in a conversation with someone trying to sell you the sky is polka dotted purple and pink, when you can look up at the blue sky yourself? How long should you bother with them? Craig Mazin asked us a very simple question in Chernobyl: "What is the cost of lies?" At least five people died because of a große Lüge told about the US election - pure propaganda, a lie so big and grotesque that only 'true believers' could accept it. Thousands are dead because of lies repeatedly told about COVID-19. It's hard to even measure how many people would be alive today if the lies about climate change had been stopped earlier. And they will not be the last, not as long as we keep "both siding" and acceding to dissent on objective fact.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  I completely agree with your assessment of all of these as obvious disinformation. However, I don't think it's obvious how to stop this from happening. While I fear the effects of this disinformation and the ease with which it is spreading, I do also fear that any attempt to combat it will just put the truth in the hands of entities which shouldn't be trusted with it, such as Facebook or Twitter or some kind of government agency.
TwoBit 6y ago
Just because one side believes the other is spreading disinformation doesn't mean they are right. See 2020 election fraud for example.

smt88 6y ago

> Therefore, the other side is always spreading disinformation. Untrue. There are lots of issues (climate change, for example) where one side (oil companies, in thise case) is spreading information that they know is not true by paying people who claim to be neutral. The latter is what people are raging against: the weaponization of social/ad networks by disingenuous actors, like authoritarians and oil companies. When people say they want to "stop disinformation campaigns," they're not talking about sincere individuals on the opposite side of an issue.

jacquesm 6y ago
Exactly. This sort of framing by the way is an exercise in disinformation itself.
oji0hub 6y ago
> The latter is what people are raging against: the weaponization of social/ad networks by disingenuous actors, like authoritarians and oil companies. It's a very optimistic view and it's certainly how things are often framed. What I've seen over the past few years though, is a very efficient filtering of the internet of almost all content that isn't left learning from all major forums and a shutting down of those that could not be filtered. Framing this as an anti mis/disinformation campaign is very clever, sometimes pointing at flagrant examples while actually censoring widely.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > What I've seen over the past few years though, is a very efficient filtering of the internet of almost all content that isn't left learning from all major forums and a shutting down of those that could not be filtered. No, you are mistaken. What is 'left leaning' in the United States would already be considered considerably right-of-center in most of the developed world, besides that, there is plenty of right leaning content out there. What has happened is that a bunch of companies decided to stop supporting some of the more batshit crazy outlets on the extreme rightwing part of the spectrum. But that doesn't mean you won't be able to read the Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator or a ton of other right leaning publications. It's just going to be a little harder to organize the next insurrection or to spread outright lies. But that's fine. Framing this as anything to do with censorship is very clever, but it really isn't. For many reasons.
  - nights192 6y ago
    I apologize, but I fail to see how the consensus view of some manner of political philosophy matters--whether right or left--as it applies to discussion and debate, insofar as justification is provided and due research applied. Again, I understand that the crux of your argument is that this discourse (that of the "crazy right wing,") is solely the fermenting ground of lies; however, I find that very difficult to believe, personally, and I believe that--while any side may develop misconceptions--exposure to these allows you to better explore your own beliefs in the face of adversity. What is crazy is a relative concept--to be cliched, homosexuality was considered a mental illness until fairly recently.
  - blub 6y ago
    Oh, there's definitely something going on, but I'm not sure that the factions can be split so easily into left-wing and right-wing, even if the political orientation correlates. Instead I would say that there's some hot button topics like immigration, racism, climate change, discrimination of all kinds, etc and there's a faction which is for more immigration, aggressively and militantly fighting racism and climate change, etc and several factions which don't agree with the above to different extents. The positions of the pro faction have become the default in mass media, to the point that the media is educating and shaping opinions more than reporting facts. Members of the against factions are typically portrayed as wicked and associated with negative labels such as nazi, right-wing (has become a slur), racist, sexist, etc and silenced or forced to grovel in order to not lose their jobs/reputation/standing, etc. This is by the way not localized to the US, instead it's visible in several (if not all) Western European countries.
hpcjoe 6y ago
If I, as a (non-practicing) scientist (physicist), look at the evidence for something in vogue (say climate change), and say I have trouble with some of the conclusions, then I am immediately and permanently labeled with the absolutely ridiculous "climate denier". Yet, and this is important, SCIENTISTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SKEPTICAL. Their job is to, generally, build new hypothesis, make predictions, test predictions, and not, in any way shape or form, fall in love with a theory, such that they exclude evidence that may contradict their belief. More broadly speaking, they should not believe. They should be skeptics. The facts, the arguments should win the day. Not the histrionics. Sadly, we are human. We are fallable. We see political winds that impact our funding for our research, and we avoid rocking those boats. In 1918, Einstein's theory of General Relativity was not considered the way things worked. Eddington and Einstein made a prediction about deflection of photons near the sun during and eclipse. Newton's equation gave one result, while GR gave another. Eddington made the measurements, and the rest, as they say, is history. Theories rise and fall based upon evidence. Attacks on evidence you don't like, or the source of funding for research that raises difficult questions, really doesn't help. Look up Lysenkoism for a great lesson in why following political/popular guidance can be a really bad idea for science.
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  > If I, as a (non-practicing) scientist (physicist), look at the evidence for something in vogue You felt the need to identify your field of expertise there. Does this not imply that you actually do believe it matters? There is body of knowledge shared by the experts in a field that help facilitate the process by focusing efforts on productive discourse. Sure every now and then som crazy theory needs to be entertained to advance the field. But it would be a colossal waste of energy to give credence to every amateur with a dissenting view point no?

IgorPartola 6y ago

I don’t. I think you are wrong because you are just wrong :)

oji0hub 6y ago
Of course you think so. And the other side thinks you're wrong.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Right. My point is that I don’t believe everyone I disagree with is trying to spread misinformation. I think Occam’s razor tells me they are much more likely to simply be incompetent. Select few deliberately spread misinformation. The rest simply parrot it as the truth because they haven’t thought it out critically.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    But someone somewhere actually sits behind their computer and dreams up this stuff that then gets seeded and passed on from one gullible mind to another. That's the heart of the problem, the initiators, and what their agendas are. It's not as though memes can be easily traced back to their sources. In fact, that would be a very nice project: to trace back any kind of meme (positive, negative, disinformation, I don't care) to its origin.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      I believe these projects have been done at least to some extent. Certainly the US intelligence community has put out a few bits of information on Russian-led disinformation campaigns. QAnon has been as I understand the most difficult to trace so far because of where it originated. One of the communities I wondered about for a while was The Great Awakening. They had a way of speaking that was so over the top that I couldn’t help but wonder just how real can it be? Specifically, they keep always calling each other “patriot” the way that Soviet citizens called each other comrade. Except, in the Soviet case it was a long thing in the making while TGA popped up overnight on Reddit so where did that come from. And their way of speaking really smelled to me like there were a ton of bots there. So, can you imagine waking up one day and realize that the political identity you’ve taken on and been discussing with people you now consider friends online has been in fact handed to you by a bunch of boys? And on top of that, the very “friends” you were talking to were largely bots? That’s gotta be a rude awakening to say the least.

Terretta 6y ago

To misinform or disinform are different words for good reason.

konjin 6y ago
And usually chosen by the side that is throwing stones. Was it misinformation or disinformation when the CDC told us not to wear masks? They did it because they thought us dying was better than doctors dying. Which does not inspire confidence in anyone who pays attention and doesn't count themselves members of the in group worth saving according to the CDC.
oji0hub 6y ago
That's why I described them in different ways.

awalton 6y ago

Except, in this case, we have a society where one side is spreading very deliberate, demonstrable, objective lies, and then saying the other side is lying as a method of trying to shut down reality-based conversation. We're reaching a point where some people in our society are so poorly informed that they literally cannot make decisions that will save their lives - people are actually dying because of disinformation about injecting bleach or taking chloroquine as a cure for COVID19. We're not facing a war on "well, my opinion is that increasing minimum wage will harm businesses," or "my opinion is that we are not doing enough for workers' rights in Silicon Valley." We're okay arguing about those points, because there's actual facts either way and it's largely political. These are dissenting opinions, and they're fine to have in a society. It's healthy even to have those discussions in a moderated community setting where conversation doesn't devolve into personal insult. But that's not what we're talking about when we talk about disinformation. The war on disinformation that we are facing is on complete and total bullshit: "Anderson Cooper drinks the blood of children and eats babies" - a real QAnon conspiracy. This isn't "dissent" - it's a bald faced lie told in attempt to discredit a journalist. "But you can't prove he doesn't eat babies!" is all the evidence they need - they want to believe it, their 'thought leaders' tell them to, and so they do. The fact that we can't even get some of these people on the same page about what disinformation actually is just shows you how far down the path these people are. That's how articles like this one get written. We can't even talk about "dissent" because people are too busy trying to tell us lies about facts, and distorting the very definition of disinformation to allow space for their lies. How long are you going to stay in a conversation with someone trying to sell you the sky is polka dotted purple and pink, when you can look up at the blue sky yourself? How long should you bother with them? Craig Mazin asked us a very simple question in Chernobyl: "What is the cost of lies?" At least five people died because of a große Lüge told about the US election - pure propaganda, a lie so big and grotesque that only 'true believers' could accept it. Thousands are dead because of lies repeatedly told about COVID-19. It's hard to even measure how many people would be alive today if the lies about climate change had been stopped earlier. And they will not be the last, not as long as we keep "both siding" and acceding to dissent on objective fact.

tsimionescu 6y ago
I completely agree with your assessment of all of these as obvious disinformation. However, I don't think it's obvious how to stop this from happening. While I fear the effects of this disinformation and the ease with which it is spreading, I do also fear that any attempt to combat it will just put the truth in the hands of entities which shouldn't be trusted with it, such as Facebook or Twitter or some kind of government agency.

TwoBit 6y ago

Just because one side believes the other is spreading disinformation doesn't mean they are right. See 2020 election fraud for example.