7 ms·

Far-right populists much more likely than the left to spread fake news – study

63 points by ggm 2y ago

Buxato 2y ago
"Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries" what a crappy study to justify that news title.
rapsey 2y ago
Data source is fact checking websites, which have been quite politically one sided.
- vvv5 2y ago
  Probably because other side doesn't like fact checking.
- progbits 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Reality_has_a_well_known_liberal_bias&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Reality_has_a_well_known_lib...
  - rapsey 2y ago
    From the good old days. When the left was for the working class and the right were war mongers.
- cheesemonster 2y ago
  [dead]
wolvesechoes 2y ago
Everyone I disagree with is far-something populist.
- cjfd 2y ago
  I am sad to hear that. I, on the other hand, am capable of distinguishing between people I have disagreements with and people who are far-left or far-right populists.
- flir 2y ago
  Sure. But what do you think of the findings of the study?
  - soco 2y ago
    I suppose the study is based on facts, and they are checked, so it must be uncomfortable and even dangerous to the side choosing fantasy arguments. But I might be wrong of course.
- cluckindan 2y ago
  That sentence is very often seen online as a dismissal of someone calling out far-right opinions. Either the poster is just parroting others, or they are a part of a concerted effort to minimize being perceived as far-right activity and maximize the end effect of said activity.
  - wolvesechoes 2y ago
    Or have a political vocabulary exceeding that of a child
- darthrupert 2y ago
  Everyone I disagree with are doing obvious, unapologetic nazi salutes in public political events.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cjfd 2y ago
[flagged]
RicDan 2y ago
I wonder why tho; humans by themselves should have an intrinsic interest in knowing how things work and behave, and being sure of it. Or maybe that's just influenced by my personality? Like I couldn't fathom doing things without being sure of it, due to being afraid of failure. Are Far-Right populists considered those fear-/hatemongering? I can imagine that when you have a scapegoat defined to push any issue to, you lose the first appeal of actually understanding things? This is quite an interesting topic, which would be fascinating to deeper understand, because from a superficial look it does appear that introducing directed hate makes masses much more susceptible to being controlled. Also helps my theory, that whilst the left did like Elon for quite some time, that doesn't mind they blindly trusted him and pointed out his issues when they came up, which pushed him to a more... comforting? right wing embracement.
- cjfd 2y ago
  It is not just 'interesting' it is in fact essential to prevent disaster on the scale of the Second World War or worse. It seems there are people who are intrinsically motivated to hate. These are the ones who are on the far right even in peaceful times. I think they are pretty much the high school bully who never grew up. Then there are those who are uncertain about the future and therefore inciteable to mistrust/hate. Then there are political leaders who estimate the size of both groups and notice that if they add them up and maybe add some violence around the elections in the mix, they might just reach a majority. Actually being interested in how things work is the business of none of the people described here.
- flir 2y ago
  Totally cynical, off-the-cuff, knee-jerk response: we're social monkeys, and group membership is more important than abstract concepts. I received a hard lesson in this topic during Covid, when I didn't start wearing a mask until everyone else did. I knew I should, but I didn't want to stand out from the crowd. The left also has its shibboleths. As I'm sure do stamp collectors, submariners, cryptozoologists, forensic accountants, etc etc etc. Human nature. (Did you see how the conversation got poisoned, then flagged? Call me paranoid, but...)
- bjoli 2y ago
cluckindan 2y ago
Personal validation effect at play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation
croon 2y ago
The study can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Let's take a look then. Firstly, is it replicable? Many academic papers aren't because their methodology either isn't specified, or the methodology isn't derived logically from the hypothesis. Here they are relying on Wikipedia and "Media Bias/Fact Check" to decide if a source is factual, and then decide anything published by any such source is wrong, and then that anyone who refers to any such article is also wrong. This is replicable at some surface level - you could use the same sources and same tweets to compute the same numbers, but lacks any form of deeper replicability because the choice of these two meta-sources doesn't follow obviously from the hypothesis and they don't specify how they chose them (beyond citing other papers that made the same choice). So an obvious criticism is how do you know these meta-sources aren't junk? They thought of this, and say: > To ensure the robustness of our methods, the factuality measure was manually validated to ensure that the articles shared in fact contain misinformation (see Supplemental Information File). We selected a stratified random sample of 50 articles from each of the five predefined factuality levels, totaling 250 articles. These were manually analyzed ... The results are reported in Supplemental Tables S6 and S7, But if we check the Supplementary Tables then we find no such validation. Ironically, this study itself contains misinformation. The articles they checked aren't listed, nor is how they decided what was or was not true. The tables are a masterclass in circular logic, comparing how accurate articles are against their "factuality group" and discovering that, shock, the academics who chose the sources agree that they are good sources. Nothing is presented that can actually be refined or refuted, because this entire "manual validation" boils down to circular reasoning of the form "the sources we chose are accurate because we checked and say they are accurate". It's just a restatement of the rest of the paper, dressed up with some tables to look sciencey. In the penultimate paragraph they do inch towards an actual evaluation, but it just shows how pseudo-scientific this paper is. They admit that in many cases sources they put in a low factuality group do report accurate news, but justify the decision by saying (about RT): > Although each individual article may be factually correct in its reporting on individual battles, the overall story is thus a false narrative of a highly successful ‘special military operation.’ This underscores the limitations of assessing factuality solely based on the accuracy of individual articles, offering further support for the validity of relying on media outlet-level analyses. This is a Kafka trap. If you report accurate stories you are nonetheless inaccurate because you don't report the things we think you should, and therefore anyone who cites you for anything at all, ever, is "spreading misinformation" regardless of topic or correctness of the statement made. The only type of source anyone is allowed to use is one that promotes the academics preferred slants, regardless of the accuracy of the information published. There are tens of thousands of studies like this coming out of academia every year that are little more than Guardian-bait. Zero of them are scientific, yet all are presented as if they are. When people call them out on this behavior, they're accused by the left of being "anti science". Where are the intellectual standards?
patrulek 2y ago
Study made by far left researchers?
BurningPenguin 2y ago
Seems to hit a nerve.
redder23 2y ago
I do not trust any study used by the guardian. Just from the heading "far-right" already a buzzword to signal to the left who the "evil" people are. And who determined who is "far" right. In propaganda news, this term is used for 10 years or whatever to describe everyone who dares to have a single opinion that is not left. "Far-right" is now used to everyone who is actually just right (often double meaning). The heading also says "the left" so did the study compare an actual small group of "far right" people vs "the left". What were the metrics used for saying someone is "far-right"? And if they actually made the group small, then OF COURSE they get the outcome they wanted. Or did the compare vs the "far-left"? Let me guess, of course not! Or did they just compare "the right" vs "the left" and the Guardian just calls them that in the headline. I frankly do not really care, I do not buy this shit. If someone wants to tell me in the comments guess I care, but I am not looking at that study because I know the outcome was already pre decided. Only dump people still read the Guardian and other legacy media. // Bahahahaah "Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries" says someone in the comments. Yeah, it's even WORSE than I thought. See I do not even to look into shit like this, I already know from the stupid headline it's complete utter bullshit.
- nathanaldensr 2y ago
  [flagged]
redder23 2y ago
I wonder why I even come to HN? Political stuff is supposedly against the rules. Yet pretty much only left wing legacy propaganda media makes it to the homepage all the time. Always NYT, Guardian and the usual suspects, always leftist stuff. Well of course Silicon Valley is infested with woke leftist BS, I should not wonder. I guess I am here for tech news and not politics, but it always comes up anyway.
nathanaldensr 2y ago
[flagged]
- archagon 2y ago
  Flagging and vouching is almost entirely community driven. Maybe people here are just more “leftist” than you think? (Whatever that means.)
toastercat 2y ago
At least in the US, it's interesting to see that the far-right has gained so much political power while accusing moderate/centrists of being far-left, and benefiting from the perception that the deep state is controlled by radical leftists. The most left-leaning politician (Bernie Sanders) has been shafted at least twice by the supposed far-left party. Meanwhile, the sitting president just signed a blanket pardon of 1500 individuals involved with the Capitol attack, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. What's even more interesting is to see the amount of Putin-apologists on the American right, with Putin literally being former-KGB.
xracy 2y ago
If your actual policies are unpopular, then you have to spread lies to make them popular.
emorning3 2y ago
Liars lie, news at 11

63 points by ggm 2y ago

Buxato 2y ago

"Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries" what a crappy study to justify that news title.

rapsey 2y ago

Data source is fact checking websites, which have been quite politically one sided.

vvv5 2y ago
Probably because other side doesn't like fact checking.
progbits 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Reality_has_a_well_known_liberal_bias&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Reality_has_a_well_known_lib...
- rapsey 2y ago
  From the good old days. When the left was for the working class and the right were war mongers.
cheesemonster 2y ago
[dead]

wolvesechoes 2y ago

Everyone I disagree with is far-something populist.

cjfd 2y ago
I am sad to hear that. I, on the other hand, am capable of distinguishing between people I have disagreements with and people who are far-left or far-right populists.
flir 2y ago
Sure. But what do you think of the findings of the study?
- soco 2y ago
  I suppose the study is based on facts, and they are checked, so it must be uncomfortable and even dangerous to the side choosing fantasy arguments. But I might be wrong of course.
cluckindan 2y ago
That sentence is very often seen online as a dismissal of someone calling out far-right opinions. Either the poster is just parroting others, or they are a part of a concerted effort to minimize being perceived as far-right activity and maximize the end effect of said activity.
- wolvesechoes 2y ago
  Or have a political vocabulary exceeding that of a child
darthrupert 2y ago
Everyone I disagree with are doing obvious, unapologetic nazi salutes in public political events.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cjfd 2y ago

[flagged]

RicDan 2y ago

I wonder why tho; humans by themselves should have an intrinsic interest in knowing how things work and behave, and being sure of it. Or maybe that's just influenced by my personality? Like I couldn't fathom doing things without being sure of it, due to being afraid of failure. Are Far-Right populists considered those fear-/hatemongering? I can imagine that when you have a scapegoat defined to push any issue to, you lose the first appeal of actually understanding things? This is quite an interesting topic, which would be fascinating to deeper understand, because from a superficial look it does appear that introducing directed hate makes masses much more susceptible to being controlled. Also helps my theory, that whilst the left did like Elon for quite some time, that doesn't mind they blindly trusted him and pointed out his issues when they came up, which pushed him to a more... comforting? right wing embracement.

cjfd 2y ago
It is not just 'interesting' it is in fact essential to prevent disaster on the scale of the Second World War or worse. It seems there are people who are intrinsically motivated to hate. These are the ones who are on the far right even in peaceful times. I think they are pretty much the high school bully who never grew up. Then there are those who are uncertain about the future and therefore inciteable to mistrust/hate. Then there are political leaders who estimate the size of both groups and notice that if they add them up and maybe add some violence around the elections in the mix, they might just reach a majority. Actually being interested in how things work is the business of none of the people described here.
flir 2y ago
Totally cynical, off-the-cuff, knee-jerk response: we're social monkeys, and group membership is more important than abstract concepts. I received a hard lesson in this topic during Covid, when I didn't start wearing a mask until everyone else did. I knew I should, but I didn't want to stand out from the crowd. The left also has its shibboleths. As I'm sure do stamp collectors, submariners, cryptozoologists, forensic accountants, etc etc etc. Human nature. (Did you see how the conversation got poisoned, then flagged? Call me paranoid, but...)
bjoli 2y ago

cluckindan 2y ago

Personal validation effect at play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation

croon 2y ago

The study can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886

mike_hearn 2y ago
Let's take a look then. Firstly, is it replicable? Many academic papers aren't because their methodology either isn't specified, or the methodology isn't derived logically from the hypothesis. Here they are relying on Wikipedia and "Media Bias/Fact Check" to decide if a source is factual, and then decide anything published by any such source is wrong, and then that anyone who refers to any such article is also wrong. This is replicable at some surface level - you could use the same sources and same tweets to compute the same numbers, but lacks any form of deeper replicability because the choice of these two meta-sources doesn't follow obviously from the hypothesis and they don't specify how they chose them (beyond citing other papers that made the same choice). So an obvious criticism is how do you know these meta-sources aren't junk? They thought of this, and say: > To ensure the robustness of our methods, the factuality measure was manually validated to ensure that the articles shared in fact contain misinformation (see Supplemental Information File). We selected a stratified random sample of 50 articles from each of the five predefined factuality levels, totaling 250 articles. These were manually analyzed ... The results are reported in Supplemental Tables S6 and S7, But if we check the Supplementary Tables then we find no such validation. Ironically, this study itself contains misinformation. The articles they checked aren't listed, nor is how they decided what was or was not true. The tables are a masterclass in circular logic, comparing how accurate articles are against their "factuality group" and discovering that, shock, the academics who chose the sources agree that they are good sources. Nothing is presented that can actually be refined or refuted, because this entire "manual validation" boils down to circular reasoning of the form "the sources we chose are accurate because we checked and say they are accurate". It's just a restatement of the rest of the paper, dressed up with some tables to look sciencey. In the penultimate paragraph they do inch towards an actual evaluation, but it just shows how pseudo-scientific this paper is. They admit that in many cases sources they put in a low factuality group do report accurate news, but justify the decision by saying (about RT): > Although each individual article may be factually correct in its reporting on individual battles, the overall story is thus a false narrative of a highly successful ‘special military operation.’ This underscores the limitations of assessing factuality solely based on the accuracy of individual articles, offering further support for the validity of relying on media outlet-level analyses. This is a Kafka trap. If you report accurate stories you are nonetheless inaccurate because you don't report the things we think you should, and therefore anyone who cites you for anything at all, ever, is "spreading misinformation" regardless of topic or correctness of the statement made. The only type of source anyone is allowed to use is one that promotes the academics preferred slants, regardless of the accuracy of the information published. There are tens of thousands of studies like this coming out of academia every year that are little more than Guardian-bait. Zero of them are scientific, yet all are presented as if they are. When people call them out on this behavior, they're accused by the left of being "anti science". Where are the intellectual standards?

patrulek 2y ago

Study made by far left researchers?

BurningPenguin 2y ago

Seems to hit a nerve.

redder23 2y ago

I do not trust any study used by the guardian. Just from the heading "far-right" already a buzzword to signal to the left who the "evil" people are. And who determined who is "far" right. In propaganda news, this term is used for 10 years or whatever to describe everyone who dares to have a single opinion that is not left. "Far-right" is now used to everyone who is actually just right (often double meaning). The heading also says "the left" so did the study compare an actual small group of "far right" people vs "the left". What were the metrics used for saying someone is "far-right"? And if they actually made the group small, then OF COURSE they get the outcome they wanted. Or did the compare vs the "far-left"? Let me guess, of course not! Or did they just compare "the right" vs "the left" and the Guardian just calls them that in the headline. I frankly do not really care, I do not buy this shit. If someone wants to tell me in the comments guess I care, but I am not looking at that study because I know the outcome was already pre decided. Only dump people still read the Guardian and other legacy media. // Bahahahaah "Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries" says someone in the comments. Yeah, it's even WORSE than I thought. See I do not even to look into shit like this, I already know from the stupid headline it's complete utter bullshit.

nathanaldensr 2y ago
[flagged]

redder23 2y ago

I wonder why I even come to HN? Political stuff is supposedly against the rules. Yet pretty much only left wing legacy propaganda media makes it to the homepage all the time. Always NYT, Guardian and the usual suspects, always leftist stuff. Well of course Silicon Valley is infested with woke leftist BS, I should not wonder. I guess I am here for tech news and not politics, but it always comes up anyway.

nathanaldensr 2y ago

[flagged]

archagon 2y ago
Flagging and vouching is almost entirely community driven. Maybe people here are just more “leftist” than you think? (Whatever that means.)

toastercat 2y ago

At least in the US, it's interesting to see that the far-right has gained so much political power while accusing moderate/centrists of being far-left, and benefiting from the perception that the deep state is controlled by radical leftists. The most left-leaning politician (Bernie Sanders) has been shafted at least twice by the supposed far-left party. Meanwhile, the sitting president just signed a blanket pardon of 1500 individuals involved with the Capitol attack, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. What's even more interesting is to see the amount of Putin-apologists on the American right, with Putin literally being former-KGB.

xracy 2y ago

If your actual policies are unpopular, then you have to spread lies to make them popular.

emorning3 2y ago

Liars lie, news at 11