I'll probably get downvoted for this, but here goes...
I listened to a podcast with a guy who runs a ring of disinformation sites in the US.
I don't think it's as big of a problem as most people think.
People don't get hit with some disinformation article and then suddenly start supporting another political party. Fake news is mostly just something to make people feel better about their views -- which are already completely set in stone.
Yes, it's fueling a bit of radicalization, which isn't great.
But I think more people are focused on this because they think it's the reason one party is getting more votes than the other. It's just not how fake news works.
My intuition also tells me that a big part of the reason people are so focused on it is that it gives them a reason to hate on their out-group. The reason I feel this is because when you encounter someone engaging in "group <x> is bad because <y>" type of behavior, and you ask them how they know(!) that <y> is true, they rarely have an answer, and they get even angrier.
I don't think it's as big of a problem as most people think.Yes, it's fueling a bit of radicalization, which isn't great.
What is the output of this radicalization? Just how big of a problem is it compared to what people are making out it? We know someone opened fire a pizza place as a direct result of this. Do you think the rise in hate crime (especially violent crime) is in some way related, too? Perps have left behind manifestos, like at El Paso, Christchurch, etc., with the same language as disinfo campaigns.
People are focused on this because it's the reason that people are being murdered because of their religion or where they were born.
Over what time period are you claiming there is a rise in hate crime? And how are you defining hate crime?
I've seen several kinds of fallacious arguments related to allegations of a rise in hate crimes. One is based on allowing people to simply claim that a hate crime occurred, without any evidence, verification, or objective definition of hate crime. Many of these claims were later shown to be false, though they continued to be cited as part of the evidence of a 'rise in hate crimes'. In these studies, the actual truth is that there is a rise in unsupported allegations of hate crime, wherein the reporter also decides for themselves what constitutes a 'hate crime.' This doesn't tell us very much about changes in the frequency or nature of real world crime.
> We know someone opened fire a pizza place as a direct result of this.
Pizzagate resulted in someone firing a single shot at the lock on a closet door to open it. In a discussion of disinformation, I think your characterization is misleading and exemplary of disinformation as well - in a manner quite similar to the disinformation that led that individual to decide to do a vigilante raid on the pizza parlor.
If we are going to be pedantic about it (in the interests of clearing up misinformation), it was 3 shots[1], and he pointed the gun at employees[2] before shooting at the closet.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. Previous coverage I'd read hadn't specified how many times he shot at the lock (ex. "shot through the lock of a closet") and I guess my brain interpreted that as 1.
Was able to find multiple corroborating sources for the 3 shots number.
I find it amusing that I'm receiving downvotes for this clarification - I'd love to understand the reasons behind them. I assume they are idealogical, but what ideology find the difference between 1 and 3 gunshots significant?
The difference is that "opened fire" is a weasel word in this instance- it is misleading as it linguistically leaves open the interpretation that multiple people were injured or killed
Until I read cwkoss' comment right now I had always assumed someone came to the pizza joint and started firing rounds at people. I admit I'm not American so I never cared enough to look up what "opened fire" meant here, but I think it's evident what people will think of when they read that expression. Hint: not someone shooting a closet's lock once to open it.
Thank you for clarifying this. Based on the coverage I've seen, I had always been under the impression that a shooter shot multiple rounds at a group of people. I had no idea it was a single round directed at a lock in a door. It's amazing how dishonest the headlines and soundbite coverage of this event were.
It's true that the Facebook app or company didn't suddenly kill them. But my claim was very specific ("Misinformation spread on Facebook led to the genocide in Myanmar") and well backed up by the evidence.
It's the same as the role Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) played during the Rwandan genocide.
The report concludes that, prior to this year, we weren’t doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence. We agree that we can and should do more.[1]
and
In a surprising concession before the Senate intelligence committee in September 2018, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg even accepted that Facebook may have a legal obligation to take down accounts that incentivize violence in countries like Myanmar. Sandberg called the situation “devastating” and acknowledged that the company needed to do more, but highlighted that Facebook had put increased resources behind being able to review content in Burmese. Shortly before the hearing, Facebook announced that it had taken the unusual step of removing a number of pages and accounts linked to the Myanmar military for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” and in order to prevent them from “further inflam[ing] ethnic and religious tensions.”[2]
The report Facebook itself commissioned and posted at [1] says:
the consequences for the victim are severe, with lives and bodily integrity placed at risk from incitement to violence. and there is a high likelihood of these risks occurring in practice(they have occurred in the past and are happening today) (page 35).
I think it's a pretty reasonable thing to believe if Facebook themselves say it too.
Most people are intelligent enough to form views outside of disinformation. For the people that read disinformation, their minds are -- for the most part -- completely made up already.
People don't go from being Democrats or swing voters to reading an article about how Hillary Clinton feasts on aborted babies in a whore house she runs in Russia, to suddenly voting for Trump.
I mean, sure, some people do. But the vast majority of disinformation is reinforcing.
I listened to a podcast with a guy who runs a ring of disinformation sites in the US.
I don't think it's as big of a problem as most people think.
People don't get hit with some disinformation article and then suddenly start supporting another political party. Fake news is mostly just something to make people feel better about their views -- which are already completely set in stone.
Yes, it's fueling a bit of radicalization, which isn't great.
But I think more people are focused on this because they think it's the reason one party is getting more votes than the other. It's just not how fake news works.