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Republicans are increasingly sharing misinformation, research finds

td__30 4y ago
Trump used the term “fake news” and we all lost it screaming about end of democracy etc… then democrats re-branded the same thing as “misinformation” and sold everyone on the original “Fake news” concept of if you don’t like what someone is saying just say it’s fake and move on.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Please, careful with those '«we»' and '«we all»'. Avoidable rhetoric that does not help in understanding the point.
  - td__30 4y ago
    It doesn’t take away from the point, what does though is focusing on wording and forbidden “rhetoric” where as missing the argument entirely. Missing or deciding to miss is arguable in this case.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      I do not understand what you wrote: rephrase it with much increased clarity. I have only a suspect of what it could mean. Statements like 'We all threw stones on the adulterer' and 'We killed the planet' and 'We all lost it screaming' would serve what? "«We»" who? Your general point of the previous post seems clear enough, I am just telling you there is no need to add those formulas. Contextually, but just for example, I have no idea what you mean with that '«we all lost it»' (again but for the suspect of a generic idea): you are using a confusing "we" that seems to involve the reader, which may spend time that would be better invested than spent in reasoning "I was in the Philippines minding my own business - was the poster actually involving me?".
- bediger4000 4y ago
  I think you're being imprecise. Trump used (and uses) "fake news" to mean any news or analysis or opinion piece he doesn't like, factual or not. People lost it because this was a world leader dismissing factual information for personal reasons.
mdp2021 4y ago
More precisely, "During 2022, Rep. nonincumbent challengers shared news that came from unreliable sources 45% of the time, which is almost 8 times as much as Rep. incumbents". While the phenomenon remains quite interesting and of concern, methodology remains to be noted: the discriminator for "good and bad" information is NewsGuard, and apart from a number of indirect indicators (e.g. clear labelling of advertisement) the main one remains a second-grade flat "«Does not repeatedly publish false content»", which has the usual weakness: determining falsehood is generally non-trivial. Of course for trivial cases it is - denying some facts would be pythonesque farce. But for non-trivial cases (which is most of them), it has become frequent to find unduly simplification replacing "strongly corroborated" with "denying that would be false" - and this grossery is a flashing light eliciting distrust. You do not trust those who label "true" what is "apparently plausible over some threshold". And such vice can be found in the very page of the Washington Post. The actual piece of info seems to be "Nonincumbent Rep.s share news from disreputed sources".

Trump used the term “fake news” and we all lost it screaming about end of democracy etc… then democrats re-branded the same thing as “misinformation” and sold everyone on the original “Fake news” concept of if you don’t like what someone is saying just say it’s fake and move on.

mdp2021 4y ago
Please, careful with those '«we»' and '«we all»'. Avoidable rhetoric that does not help in understanding the point.
- td__30 4y ago
  It doesn’t take away from the point, what does though is focusing on wording and forbidden “rhetoric” where as missing the argument entirely. Missing or deciding to miss is arguable in this case.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    I do not understand what you wrote: rephrase it with much increased clarity. I have only a suspect of what it could mean. Statements like 'We all threw stones on the adulterer' and 'We killed the planet' and 'We all lost it screaming' would serve what? "«We»" who? Your general point of the previous post seems clear enough, I am just telling you there is no need to add those formulas. Contextually, but just for example, I have no idea what you mean with that '«we all lost it»' (again but for the suspect of a generic idea): you are using a confusing "we" that seems to involve the reader, which may spend time that would be better invested than spent in reasoning "I was in the Philippines minding my own business - was the poster actually involving me?".
bediger4000 4y ago
I think you're being imprecise. Trump used (and uses) "fake news" to mean any news or analysis or opinion piece he doesn't like, factual or not. People lost it because this was a world leader dismissing factual information for personal reasons.

mdp2021 4y ago

More precisely, "During 2022, Rep. nonincumbent challengers shared news that came from unreliable sources 45% of the time, which is almost 8 times as much as Rep. incumbents". While the phenomenon remains quite interesting and of concern, methodology remains to be noted: the discriminator for "good and bad" information is NewsGuard, and apart from a number of indirect indicators (e.g. clear labelling of advertisement) the main one remains a second-grade flat "«Does not repeatedly publish false content»", which has the usual weakness: determining falsehood is generally non-trivial. Of course for trivial cases it is - denying some facts would be pythonesque farce. But for non-trivial cases (which is most of them), it has become frequent to find unduly simplification replacing "strongly corroborated" with "denying that would be false" - and this grossery is a flashing light eliciting distrust. You do not trust those who label "true" what is "apparently plausible over some threshold". And such vice can be found in the very page of the Washington Post. The actual piece of info seems to be "Nonincumbent Rep.s share news from disreputed sources".