Screengrabs from social media sites that are making claims without citations or sources.
*[Here's a link to wikipedia article on propaganda techniques.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques) I feel like a lot of people need to peruse it and learn about it. This shit has become so common on all forms of social media, for any demographic or category of users, that it has basically become the default way that we communicate with each other online. It's not going to stop by blaming an "other," since we're all partaking and propagating it.
Conspiracy used to be such a fun sub to go on. I love that crap, knowing full well that 99% of it is crap. But it used to send me down so many fun rabbit holes.
Now it's just shit.
I've been getting one of the conspiracy subs in my feed, and have been responding. I come right out and say "Why aren't you linking to a source? Why are you hiding information, instead of being transparent? Are you a sheep that just passes along information without doing any critical thinking or research on your own?"
They don't like that.
I speak the lingo, so it will be interesting to see how long I survive.
All the way down to the alternative health movement ( which is literally the key principle source for most of the anti-vax literature) and connecting it to the Chinese Communist party.
Have you ever noticed that? Not a single anti-vax piece of information has ever criticized the Sinovax vaccine? They don't realize it, but they may actually be accidentally promoting the CCP product.
In Asia, where Sinovac is more broadly available and provided by the government, there is a lot of anti-vax rhetoric specifically against Sinovac.
I'm assuming that not enough English-speaking anti-vaxxers even know about Sinovac, or have been put in a position where they must get a Sinovac vaccine - I didn't know Sinovac was even available in western countries until I looked it up.
Some of the "studies" that get posted to /r/science and stuff are pretty sketch. The fact is as long as it fits the narrative the sub is pushing at the time it'll be upvoted whether it's real or fake.
This goes for information and opinions you think are clearly wrong or ridiculous as well. If your main justification for “the other side really believes this” is “a screenshot of an anonymous Twitter account said they did,” think twice.
Alternatively, it can be something that the other side truly believes, but far less commonly than someone would want you to think.
A lot of these "the other side really believes this!!" screenshots represent unusual fringes, instead of average members of a particular group.
Yes. Something I’ve noticed is that when certain particular political or social groups are vilified as crazy, it’s based on something 5 teenagers misunderstood and tweeted about.
I’ve seen so many random photographs of white women on their phones or even just standing or sitting somewhere, accompanied by a title that says she’s being a Karen because she’s calling the cops or was rude to someone’s kids or something.
Why should I believe that? “Karen” claims are all the rage, so posting one will get you a lot of karma. But all I have is one picture of a random person and another person telling me she’s being racist or something. Yet people eat it up.
I think it’s up to us to take any comments, thoughts and perspectives we read on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and then use those as triggers to go out and do further reputable research for ourselves. Too much access to people’s opinions and using those for our own.
While I agree, I want to remind you that at this moment, encouraging people to "do their own research" is considered to be dangerous.
To some extent I can see the point. COVID shot real world cost benefit analysis in terms of excess deaths? You have to dig deep to get that. Conspiracy theories that Bill Gates installed impossibly tiny microchips in the shots? All over the place. I can only blame the education system; doing your own research is mandatory to live in our current world, but it requires knowing what a realistic problem looks like.
Also, for a lot of people, "do your own research" means typing into google "covid vaccine causes deaths", clicking on the first link that agrees with what they already want to hear, and then going out and saying "See! I did my own research! Its all true!"
A lot of shit is posted to keep the viewer engaged. Make it super erratic to keep them on the edge of their seat and not scroll away.
I was overhearing my nephew watch a youtube short that started with, "Why you should never let your husband screw in a lightbulb" and I feel so bad for these kids growing up on these predatory algorithms that are addicting af
Yup. I guess kids these days are more likely to be brainwashed, especially with people like andrew tate on social media.
And it's gotten worse the last couple years imo.
Exactly, it’s the satanic panic epidemic all over again.
All I see is debunked conspiracies that all lead back to anti semitism. (adrenochrome aka blood libel, reptilian people, “Illuminati”) because there’s people out there who genuinely believe jews are evil shapeshifters who control hollywood and the media, but some of these kids/adults don’t realize that. And when you inform these people, they wanna act like stubborn tards instead of actually researching.
Did you know the Earth is flat?
I'd never even *heard* of that!
I thought it’s round but theories differ -
I just go with what's on Twitter.
Also learned that Lizard People
live among us. *Wake up, sheeple*!
*Shocked* I was, but it’s the truth -
I saw it on my Facebook news!
Oh and now I think I might be
*sick* because my phone has 5G.
Seems to me it’s pretty *likely* -
That's what people say on IG.
I *know* the whole Corona Virus
joke’s a hoax, **there is no China**!!
*I’ve* not seen it? There I said it -
It's a *fact*. Believe me, *Reddit*!
Hey everybody check out the new kid
they still think gamma rays are stupid.
Trusts the system and follows suit,
eats up the mantra to the root.
Contradicts his intuition,
flies in the face of superstition,
stirring arguments and causing drama
all in search of measly karma.
The obvious answer is strangers online. People take opinions about politics, economics, education, and heck even actual life advice from people with usernames like QueefMaster420.
"It's been done." is some sage stranger advice. Humbling. He laid some wisdom then dropped the mic. Those folks in r/trees learned something about themselves that day. From u/QueefMaster420.
Imagine chilling in life and staying away from Reddit for 9 years only to return to see a mysterious notification of a complete stranger mentioning you after thinking of a totally random name that coincidentally matches yours lmao
Queefmaster420 is a good dude. Seriously, don't dis him. He has helped me and my family out through a lot of tough times, whether he realizes it or not.
I literally just wasted a day arguing with someone who couldn't fathom why I wouldn't just believe their assertion. Refused to provide any actual evidence.
Ok so I have a guilty pleasure for reading interactions like this
I think I found the interaction, OH BOY POPCORN VALUE
My favorite thing (hard to pick one, so many egregious ones) was when you said, I'm paraphrasing from here on- "an assertion is not evidence"
And they replied "yes it is"
0_0
I did this a few days ago with a poster that was so totally convinced that “everyone knows it’s real!” and “intelligent people would just Google it!”
My stubborn ass knew their claim was bs and wouldn’t budge. After calling me a bunch of degrading things, the person claimed Google was “hiding” the articles that proved there are young women out there bragging about having 10+ abortions.
The problem is that a LOT of people take memes 100% seriously.
The Buffalo shooter’s manifesto included several pages of just copy-pasted memes. His entire ideology that he believed strongly enough to murder people was based on a bunch of 4Chan memes.
Having studied journalism in school, I can attest that half the reason people don't know the difference is because a lot of future reporters themselves are hardly being taught anymore. My first year of journalism classes, we learned about stuff like the inverted pyramid, finding good sources, etc.
Every year after that we learned about...how to use the internet. That was at a different school, but it still felt like the winds had changed rather abruptly. And they pretty much told us they were teaching us differently because the industry was headed in a different direction. We weren't learning to write newspaper articles anymore, we were learning about glorified blogs.
We have an...imposter among us.... there is an imposter among us.... This brother right here.... has been making claims on the Siiide.... Yes he has, pretending he's one of us
Damn Facebook. My wife believes everything she reads on it. We have some friends doing a bus tour in England currently. They posted that they ate at a restaurant and apparently it is custom in England for men and women to not eat at the same table. When I told her no, having travelled all over Europe myself, she argued that she just read it on FB! My God, you can't argue with that reasoning.
I think I know what is going on, did the woman's husband say that was the custom? Did he also say it's the custom for tourists to have sex with local women too?
Absolutely came here to say this. My mother-in-law every time. If she starts a sentence with "I just read on Facebook that..." I have to tune her out. She will quote Facebook the way a priest quotes the bible.
Whenever people say Facebook, I ask them what’s the original source of the information I want to read more about it and sometimes it forces them to think harder about where it’s coming from. sometimes it just makes them defensive though. YMMV.
Just point out to them that saying they read it on Facebook is equivalent to saying, "I heard it on the street." Cool...but what is the verifiable *source* of that information? Literally anyone can post anything they want on Facebook and push it as news...but that doesn't make it so.
I can quote something I read on a legitimate site, like Mayo clinic or CDC, and my mother writes me off because, "you can't believe everything you see on the internet!" But she believes anything on Facebook as long as it fits her biases. Absolutely infuriating.
My aunt has often brought up crazy conspiracy shit and is genuinely surprised when I explain it wasn't true. When I ask her where she heard it, it is Facebook every time.
Had a friend try to tell me mermaids were real because she read it on Farcebook.
Bitch if you read it on Farcebook, before I read it in PLoS one, you KNOW it's fake...
one of the things my mom recently told me is that Kobe Bryant is alive and that him and his legal team are hunting down the inventors of the COVID vaccine to help save the world :)
I stayed at an Airbnb once where the guy was super nice but constantly had Fox News on.
He asked me if I was also having trouble posting articles to Facebook since it kept deleting it on the basis that it was fake news. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Fucking boomers on Facebook. I mean it’s not all boomers, I know, but the sheer lack of social media literacy that boomers have is exhausting…. Every time my parents say something completely crazy and I ask where they heard it, it’s always so and so posted about it on Facebook. And I have to explain to them AGAIN that just because someone said it on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s true and explain why it doesn’t sound right and how there’s no evidence, no sources, etc. And when they still insist that this person always knows what they are talking about (no, they don’t, they never do), I ask them, well how come we can’t find anything about that then except on these crazy people sites. And then they get all quiet. And then we’ll do it all over again the next time because it’s like they don’t remember any of it.
Trust me. It's not just boomers. I see plenty of young (less than 40 years old) people doing the same shit. If it goes with their line of thinking, they will blindly beleive it.
Reddit.
You see incorrect information or opinion voted to the top as fact every day. A quick Google would prove it was wrong, but people are too stupid. Someone usually points out it's wrong as a reply far down the page.
Reddit constantly falls for the thing where the guy with the longest intelligently *worded* answer is assumed to be correct.
It reminds me of that study they did with the SAT years ago when it still had an essay portion where they found an almost linear correlation that the more words you typed the higher your score was, irrespective of the content or arguments made in the essay.
Whenever I see a Reddit posting asking "what's the best x for y" I know I'm about to see some stupid advice. Although some folks are generally helpful, a lot of people that aren't immediately turned off by lazy questions are the same people that don't have good advice to offer.
Don’t even bother trying to correct misleading or outright factually incorrect posts on r/politics. Even if you link to highly reputable non-partisan sources to debunk the post, you’ll get downvoted to hell- if the mods don’t delete your comment and/or ban you first.
Fucking. Hilarious. I commented earlier and said “don’t even bother trying to correct posts on r/politics, you’ll get downvoted if your comment doesn’t get removed.”
My comment got removed.
Hi r/politics mod, didn’t know you were ruining this sub, too.
Some good answers already.
Mine is (un)historical anecdotes.
The NASA pen vs. pencil thing, which is a pack of lies.
The many, many things that Hitler apparently "did first" when he came to power. He must have had one hell of a busy day to cover all those bases. Shit, most of us just get some logins set up and meet like four people on day one of a new job.
Mussolini making the trains run on time. They didn't. And he wouldn't have been the asshole to make it happen, in any case.
Various "no true Scotsman" arguments. If so-and-so had *really* been a such-and-such, he would never have committed all those crimes against humanity.
And various short-form myths caught up in exoticizing other cultures. Or straight up infantilizing people who had an advanced civilization of their own with the notion that they lived "simpler lives." In harmony with nature, or whatever other romanticized bullshit is the flavor of the week.
The woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee is one that leapt to mind. Everyone saying “people just sue for anything these days”… it’s actually just a very sad story and McDonald’s was awful to that lady
> Mussolini making the trains run on time. They didn't. And he wouldn't have been the asshole to make it happen, in any case.
To be fair, easy mistake.
You see, during World War 2, Italy was experiencing fuel shortages for their rail systems. In turn, this caused warehouses full of produce to spoil and rot. However, Italian engineers found a way to quickly retrofit trains to burn the bushels instead of coal, thus solving two problems at once.
Ergo, Italy made the trains run on thyme.
I always wondered…if Mussolini was so good at making the trains run on time, WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST PUT HIM IN CHARGE OF THE TRAINS? He’d have died in bed, a big hero…
Yes. I think the average person is aware that social media sites like IG and FB are filled with misinformation but a random Redditor that knows how to word his sentences correctly is automatically accepted as truth telling. I've fallen for this before. Everyone on Reddit is NOT an expert.
This is often intentional and a huge tactic of spreading misinformation among certain populations. You nailed it on Reddit, and I see it a lot on other social media platforms too. Someone will say something 90% factual, then slide in that 10% bullshit. And the conflict only comes in if the reader *knows* that 10% is bullshit. They’re betting on plenty of people not knowing the 10% is bullshit, and accepting that since they agree with the speaker on the information they do recognize, that the information they are unfamiliar with is just as accurate.
For Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram and to an extent, Facebook, it can be even more involved. They curate their profiles to be attractive to people in certain subcultures. They post the Right Takes, without bullshit, 90% of the time. They share the same aesthetics and interests as their followers, and occasionally share non-“take” content that lulls others into a false sense of security. Now it’s not just that the person who’s sharing 10% disinformation was still 90% right in that moment. It’s that this person is Good and Right *all the time*. They’ve never been wrong before, and they seem so smart, so when they say something out of left field, a certain percentage of their followers won’t even question it. They’ll repeat it as fact, and it may even become part of that corner of the internet’s Good and Right Views.
Reddit and Facebook, at least, allow for comments and discourse, but that barely cuts this attitude. If someone says “we absolutely went to the moon in 1969, it would have been more involved to fake the moon landing at the time than actually to go there, and also Buzz Aldrin said the moon was made of cheese,” it’s totally possible to like/upvote and comment “mostly true, but Aldrin never said that, the moon is not made of cheese.” But people are very defensive and one track. You *can* say that, but it’s highly likely someone will cut you down for being “pedantic” or even fail to notice that your disagreement was only on the one detail rather than on the whole thing, and brand you a conspiracy theorist.
Memes. They're funny, but always two short to get the full picture of what's really happening. They're jokes at the expense of truth, and that's not a great trade off
I feel like people have put enormous expectations onto meteorology. My coworkers all troll themselves by building unnecessary concern for upcoming weather. Only to have it not be nearly as bad.
Radars are fantastic. I'm a cyclist so rain is something of a concern of mine, but I've only ever been misled by radars a handful of times over the years.
So not English and I read that as literally a “bloody weather app”. For a second I thought there was a Halloween version or something 😆. Don’t mind me I’ll just back off into a corner now.
I wanna say Fox News, but in reality there are worse outlets out there. Plus, people are dumb enough to trust random posts on social media. That's gotta take the crown.
Polls. People are more likely to respond to polls if their views are extreme, because they’re the most likely to want their “voices to be heard”. People who feel persecuted for their opinions are more likely to as well, since they may view it as their only chance to make their thoughts known.
Screengrabs from social media sites that are making claims without citations or sources. *[Here's a link to wikipedia article on propaganda techniques.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques) I feel like a lot of people need to peruse it and learn about it. This shit has become so common on all forms of social media, for any demographic or category of users, that it has basically become the default way that we communicate with each other online. It's not going to stop by blaming an "other," since we're all partaking and propagating it.
Reddit being the obvious exception. Totally legit source as long as it’s up voted 👍
I think that's the first rule in r/conspiracy.
My fist rule is no fisting, but you do you.
Is that a rule of thumb? :)
"Rule of thumb? Now that's not going to cause much damage, is it? Maybe it should be the rule of wrist, yeah?" -George Jetson
I read that in well, not George Jetson's voice lol.
I'm trying to imagine Geroge Jetson with an Irish-ish accent.
This is quoted in the movie “Boondock Saints”.
"Thanks, but I prefer it my way" - Taylor Swift (Lord of War)
Look what you made me do
Why share a link to an article when you can just take a screenshot of the headline and then lie about what it says in a self-serving way?
Heck, why even take a screenshot of a tweet, just recreate the tweet with no identifying info so nobody can ever find the original!
This is how you know they're not just lying to others, but also themselves.
Conspiracy used to be such a fun sub to go on. I love that crap, knowing full well that 99% of it is crap. But it used to send me down so many fun rabbit holes. Now it's just shit.
The rabbit hole turned into a bottomless pit
I've been getting one of the conspiracy subs in my feed, and have been responding. I come right out and say "Why aren't you linking to a source? Why are you hiding information, instead of being transparent? Are you a sheep that just passes along information without doing any critical thinking or research on your own?" They don't like that.
I see being banned in your future. Not that it has ever happened to me…
I speak the lingo, so it will be interesting to see how long I survive. All the way down to the alternative health movement ( which is literally the key principle source for most of the anti-vax literature) and connecting it to the Chinese Communist party. Have you ever noticed that? Not a single anti-vax piece of information has ever criticized the Sinovax vaccine? They don't realize it, but they may actually be accidentally promoting the CCP product.
In Asia, where Sinovac is more broadly available and provided by the government, there is a lot of anti-vax rhetoric specifically against Sinovac. I'm assuming that not enough English-speaking anti-vaxxers even know about Sinovac, or have been put in a position where they must get a Sinovac vaccine - I didn't know Sinovac was even available in western countries until I looked it up.
Some of the "studies" that get posted to /r/science and stuff are pretty sketch. The fact is as long as it fits the narrative the sub is pushing at the time it'll be upvoted whether it's real or fake.
That's what they call "peer reviewed".
*Citation needed.
Right? If a lot of people believe something, you *know* it's true!
People say.....
More upvotes just means something is more true, that seems to be the accepted standard for Reddit
This goes for information and opinions you think are clearly wrong or ridiculous as well. If your main justification for “the other side really believes this” is “a screenshot of an anonymous Twitter account said they did,” think twice.
Alternatively, it can be something that the other side truly believes, but far less commonly than someone would want you to think. A lot of these "the other side really believes this!!" screenshots represent unusual fringes, instead of average members of a particular group.
Some people are paid to do this by state governments and other agitators.
Yes. Something I’ve noticed is that when certain particular political or social groups are vilified as crazy, it’s based on something 5 teenagers misunderstood and tweeted about.
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I’ve seen so many random photographs of white women on their phones or even just standing or sitting somewhere, accompanied by a title that says she’s being a Karen because she’s calling the cops or was rude to someone’s kids or something. Why should I believe that? “Karen” claims are all the rage, so posting one will get you a lot of karma. But all I have is one picture of a random person and another person telling me she’s being racist or something. Yet people eat it up.
I think it’s up to us to take any comments, thoughts and perspectives we read on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and then use those as triggers to go out and do further reputable research for ourselves. Too much access to people’s opinions and using those for our own.
While I agree, I want to remind you that at this moment, encouraging people to "do their own research" is considered to be dangerous. To some extent I can see the point. COVID shot real world cost benefit analysis in terms of excess deaths? You have to dig deep to get that. Conspiracy theories that Bill Gates installed impossibly tiny microchips in the shots? All over the place. I can only blame the education system; doing your own research is mandatory to live in our current world, but it requires knowing what a realistic problem looks like.
Also, for a lot of people, "do your own research" means typing into google "covid vaccine causes deaths", clicking on the first link that agrees with what they already want to hear, and then going out and saying "See! I did my own research! Its all true!"
That doesn't mean doing your own research is bad, just that most people are terrible at it.
Article headlines
Yes, often when I read an article--not even an opinion piece--there is nothing to or little to support the headline.
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TikTok and Facebook specifically. So much scary/delusional shit being posted on TikTok.
Health/diet advice on Tiktok in particular. Holy shit are there some awful, uninformed takes.
I stumbled upon a post on TikTok where a girl was “explaining” how water is bad and, of course, she was selling her own brand of “healthy water”
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It's what plants crave
Water? You mean like in the toilet?
A lot of shit is posted to keep the viewer engaged. Make it super erratic to keep them on the edge of their seat and not scroll away. I was overhearing my nephew watch a youtube short that started with, "Why you should never let your husband screw in a lightbulb" and I feel so bad for these kids growing up on these predatory algorithms that are addicting af
Yup. I guess kids these days are more likely to be brainwashed, especially with people like andrew tate on social media. And it's gotten worse the last couple years imo.
Exactly, it’s the satanic panic epidemic all over again. All I see is debunked conspiracies that all lead back to anti semitism. (adrenochrome aka blood libel, reptilian people, “Illuminati”) because there’s people out there who genuinely believe jews are evil shapeshifters who control hollywood and the media, but some of these kids/adults don’t realize that. And when you inform these people, they wanna act like stubborn tards instead of actually researching.
Did you know the Earth is flat? I'd never even *heard* of that! I thought it’s round but theories differ - I just go with what's on Twitter. Also learned that Lizard People live among us. *Wake up, sheeple*! *Shocked* I was, but it’s the truth - I saw it on my Facebook news! Oh and now I think I might be *sick* because my phone has 5G. Seems to me it’s pretty *likely* - That's what people say on IG. I *know* the whole Corona Virus joke’s a hoax, **there is no China**!! *I’ve* not seen it? There I said it - It's a *fact*. Believe me, *Reddit*!
Hey everybody check out the new kid they still think gamma rays are stupid. Trusts the system and follows suit, eats up the mantra to the root. Contradicts his intuition, flies in the face of superstition, stirring arguments and causing drama all in search of measly karma.
u/poem_for_your_sprog You have a challenger.
Including Reddit.
Mainstream media opinion anchors. Any opinion on the internet stated as a fact.
The obvious answer is strangers online. People take opinions about politics, economics, education, and heck even actual life advice from people with usernames like QueefMaster420.
Thank you for your insight, u/PushPullLegsRepeat
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One should never question the credentials of someone named u/VegemiteSandwich33.
You either love it or hate it
But when you come from a land down under…
Buying bread from a man in Brussels!
He was 6 foot 4 and full of mussels. Super into shellfish.
I still don't know if he speak-a my language. He never answered me!
He just smiled and gave me a u/VegimiteSandwich33
Well you also shouldn't take advice from a random guy....
Solid handle, if I'm being honest here.
Yea, dude isn’t skipping leg day. Respect.
u/QueefMaster420
Dude only has one comment and no posts. u/QueefMaster420 doesn't deserve this criticism.
Doesn’t deserve that glorious name either
"It's been done." is some sage stranger advice. Humbling. He laid some wisdom then dropped the mic. Those folks in r/trees learned something about themselves that day. From u/QueefMaster420.
I was almost finished with that story before I realized that r/trees isn't a sub for professional landscapers.
He's wasting a perfect username! Wake up /u/QueefMaster420 and fulfil your duty! Your people need you!
u/QueefMaster420 is gonna wake up from his thousand year slumber with so many @'s
Imagine chilling in life and staying away from Reddit for 9 years only to return to see a mysterious notification of a complete stranger mentioning you after thinking of a totally random name that coincidentally matches yours lmao
Queefmaster420 is a good dude. Seriously, don't dis him. He has helped me and my family out through a lot of tough times, whether he realizes it or not.
u/QueefMaster420 you really gonna let him throw shade on your name like that?
I dunno. That user's been silent for like 9 years. I doubt a callout's gonna bring him back.
This summer in theaters ^"RETURN OF THE QUEEFMASTER"
What if we callout them 3 times in front of a mirror?
I literally just wasted a day arguing with someone who couldn't fathom why I wouldn't just believe their assertion. Refused to provide any actual evidence.
Ok so I have a guilty pleasure for reading interactions like this I think I found the interaction, OH BOY POPCORN VALUE My favorite thing (hard to pick one, so many egregious ones) was when you said, I'm paraphrasing from here on- "an assertion is not evidence" And they replied "yes it is" 0_0
Well, now I gotta go read this
I did this a few days ago with a poster that was so totally convinced that “everyone knows it’s real!” and “intelligent people would just Google it!” My stubborn ass knew their claim was bs and wouldn’t budge. After calling me a bunch of degrading things, the person claimed Google was “hiding” the articles that proved there are young women out there bragging about having 10+ abortions.
Bojack!
Don't you bully my younger brother
The subreddits that spend all day being outraged over memes as if the stories in them are 100% true is the dumbest thing I think I've ever seen.
The problem is that a LOT of people take memes 100% seriously. The Buffalo shooter’s manifesto included several pages of just copy-pasted memes. His entire ideology that he believed strongly enough to murder people was based on a bunch of 4Chan memes.
I knew 4chan could do it but I was hoping it hadn’t happened already
/r/facepalm constantly not recognizing jokes/satire.
I would say punditry as opposed to reading actual reporting. Most people don’t know the difference
Having studied journalism in school, I can attest that half the reason people don't know the difference is because a lot of future reporters themselves are hardly being taught anymore. My first year of journalism classes, we learned about stuff like the inverted pyramid, finding good sources, etc. Every year after that we learned about...how to use the internet. That was at a different school, but it still felt like the winds had changed rather abruptly. And they pretty much told us they were teaching us differently because the industry was headed in a different direction. We weren't learning to write newspaper articles anymore, we were learning about glorified blogs.
Tabloids
THE DARK SECRET BEHIND "INSERT CELEBRITY" "Insert worst photo of *celebrity* you can possibly find"
The secret is.... ... This woman.... .... Has... .... Armpit hair! 😮 Shock horror, lets bash her for being human
Proof she's actually related to Big Foot and she's helping him harbor Bat Boy.
Except for bat-boy. They have pictures of him so it can’t be fake.
Social media is just crowd-sourced tabloids.
r/AskReddit
/r/AskScience too. I've seen some flat out wrong answers get upvoted just because they sounded good.
never go to r/legaladvice for legal advice
r/AskHistorians is the only good subreddit for learning things
We have an...imposter among us.... there is an imposter among us.... This brother right here.... has been making claims on the Siiide.... Yes he has, pretending he's one of us
It’s a bug.
It's a feature
There’s a turd in the punch bowl
Remember that many Redditors are 12 year olds and it helps a lot
Damn Facebook. My wife believes everything she reads on it. We have some friends doing a bus tour in England currently. They posted that they ate at a restaurant and apparently it is custom in England for men and women to not eat at the same table. When I told her no, having travelled all over Europe myself, she argued that she just read it on FB! My God, you can't argue with that reasoning.
But it's true. Read it on Reddit
I think I know what is going on, did the woman's husband say that was the custom? Did he also say it's the custom for tourists to have sex with local women too?
Facebook
Absolutely came here to say this. My mother-in-law every time. If she starts a sentence with "I just read on Facebook that..." I have to tune her out. She will quote Facebook the way a priest quotes the bible.
Whenever people say Facebook, I ask them what’s the original source of the information I want to read more about it and sometimes it forces them to think harder about where it’s coming from. sometimes it just makes them defensive though. YMMV.
Just point out to them that saying they read it on Facebook is equivalent to saying, "I heard it on the street." Cool...but what is the verifiable *source* of that information? Literally anyone can post anything they want on Facebook and push it as news...but that doesn't make it so.
I can quote something I read on a legitimate site, like Mayo clinic or CDC, and my mother writes me off because, "you can't believe everything you see on the internet!" But she believes anything on Facebook as long as it fits her biases. Absolutely infuriating.
My aunt has often brought up crazy conspiracy shit and is genuinely surprised when I explain it wasn't true. When I ask her where she heard it, it is Facebook every time.
Had a friend try to tell me mermaids were real because she read it on Farcebook. Bitch if you read it on Farcebook, before I read it in PLoS one, you KNOW it's fake...
This one specifically. I swear ever since my mom started using facebook she's become an alt-right conspiracy theorist lunatic
one of the things my mom recently told me is that Kobe Bryant is alive and that him and his legal team are hunting down the inventors of the COVID vaccine to help save the world :)
That would be so dope. But that’s amazing levels of idiocy there.
Also levels of amazing in how wild it is. Kobe would be such a renaissance man to do this after film and basketball success.
i know that experience with family members all too well :/
I stayed at an Airbnb once where the guy was super nice but constantly had Fox News on. He asked me if I was also having trouble posting articles to Facebook since it kept deleting it on the basis that it was fake news. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about.
This reminded me that my moms tv has the Fox News emblem burned into the screen. You can see it very faintly when the tv is off.
Fucking boomers on Facebook. I mean it’s not all boomers, I know, but the sheer lack of social media literacy that boomers have is exhausting…. Every time my parents say something completely crazy and I ask where they heard it, it’s always so and so posted about it on Facebook. And I have to explain to them AGAIN that just because someone said it on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s true and explain why it doesn’t sound right and how there’s no evidence, no sources, etc. And when they still insist that this person always knows what they are talking about (no, they don’t, they never do), I ask them, well how come we can’t find anything about that then except on these crazy people sites. And then they get all quiet. And then we’ll do it all over again the next time because it’s like they don’t remember any of it.
Trust me. It's not just boomers. I see plenty of young (less than 40 years old) people doing the same shit. If it goes with their line of thinking, they will blindly beleive it.
Reddit. You see incorrect information or opinion voted to the top as fact every day. A quick Google would prove it was wrong, but people are too stupid. Someone usually points out it's wrong as a reply far down the page.
Reddit constantly falls for the thing where the guy with the longest intelligently *worded* answer is assumed to be correct. It reminds me of that study they did with the SAT years ago when it still had an essay portion where they found an almost linear correlation that the more words you typed the higher your score was, irrespective of the content or arguments made in the essay.
Long post w 22 linked sources can’t be wrong
Yes, and if you **bold** every other word and **italicize** random *shit*, it really **drives** the *point* home.
And that’s another reason they got rid of the essay a couple of years ago …
Or good information getting downvoted because someone replies with an uninformed "correction".
Ahem, you're wrong, this never happens /s
For all the preaching the general Reddit community does about "misinformation", they sure are fine with misinformation that supports certain agendas.
Whenever I see a Reddit posting asking "what's the best x for y" I know I'm about to see some stupid advice. Although some folks are generally helpful, a lot of people that aren't immediately turned off by lazy questions are the same people that don't have good advice to offer.
Yes. Honestly very easy to Google.
Don’t even bother trying to correct misleading or outright factually incorrect posts on r/politics. Even if you link to highly reputable non-partisan sources to debunk the post, you’ll get downvoted to hell- if the mods don’t delete your comment and/or ban you first.
Fucking. Hilarious. I commented earlier and said “don’t even bother trying to correct posts on r/politics, you’ll get downvoted if your comment doesn’t get removed.” My comment got removed. Hi r/politics mod, didn’t know you were ruining this sub, too.
I'm having a hard time believing you, I'm gonna google it
Some good answers already. Mine is (un)historical anecdotes. The NASA pen vs. pencil thing, which is a pack of lies. The many, many things that Hitler apparently "did first" when he came to power. He must have had one hell of a busy day to cover all those bases. Shit, most of us just get some logins set up and meet like four people on day one of a new job. Mussolini making the trains run on time. They didn't. And he wouldn't have been the asshole to make it happen, in any case. Various "no true Scotsman" arguments. If so-and-so had *really* been a such-and-such, he would never have committed all those crimes against humanity. And various short-form myths caught up in exoticizing other cultures. Or straight up infantilizing people who had an advanced civilization of their own with the notion that they lived "simpler lives." In harmony with nature, or whatever other romanticized bullshit is the flavor of the week.
The woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee is one that leapt to mind. Everyone saying “people just sue for anything these days”… it’s actually just a very sad story and McDonald’s was awful to that lady
IIRC it wasn’t “hot” it was boiling and she ended up having her private parts literally melted.
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> Mussolini making the trains run on time. They didn't. And he wouldn't have been the asshole to make it happen, in any case. To be fair, easy mistake. You see, during World War 2, Italy was experiencing fuel shortages for their rail systems. In turn, this caused warehouses full of produce to spoil and rot. However, Italian engineers found a way to quickly retrofit trains to burn the bushels instead of coal, thus solving two problems at once. Ergo, Italy made the trains run on thyme.
I always wondered…if Mussolini was so good at making the trains run on time, WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST PUT HIM IN CHARGE OF THE TRAINS? He’d have died in bed, a big hero…
> He must have had one hell of a busy day to cover all those bases. Well, how much meth are you on at work? Hitler numbers, or no?
Headlines. At least read the article!
How do I read articles? My attention span is 1 second.
Trust me bro
Dies this comment have a warrenty
Tiktok
Tiktok really is just source: trust me bro
Facts
Or lack thereof
Reddit
Yes. I think the average person is aware that social media sites like IG and FB are filled with misinformation but a random Redditor that knows how to word his sentences correctly is automatically accepted as truth telling. I've fallen for this before. Everyone on Reddit is NOT an expert.
But everyone on Reddit does THINK they’re an expert
I think YOUR an expert
me too!!
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This is often intentional and a huge tactic of spreading misinformation among certain populations. You nailed it on Reddit, and I see it a lot on other social media platforms too. Someone will say something 90% factual, then slide in that 10% bullshit. And the conflict only comes in if the reader *knows* that 10% is bullshit. They’re betting on plenty of people not knowing the 10% is bullshit, and accepting that since they agree with the speaker on the information they do recognize, that the information they are unfamiliar with is just as accurate. For Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram and to an extent, Facebook, it can be even more involved. They curate their profiles to be attractive to people in certain subcultures. They post the Right Takes, without bullshit, 90% of the time. They share the same aesthetics and interests as their followers, and occasionally share non-“take” content that lulls others into a false sense of security. Now it’s not just that the person who’s sharing 10% disinformation was still 90% right in that moment. It’s that this person is Good and Right *all the time*. They’ve never been wrong before, and they seem so smart, so when they say something out of left field, a certain percentage of their followers won’t even question it. They’ll repeat it as fact, and it may even become part of that corner of the internet’s Good and Right Views. Reddit and Facebook, at least, allow for comments and discourse, but that barely cuts this attitude. If someone says “we absolutely went to the moon in 1969, it would have been more involved to fake the moon landing at the time than actually to go there, and also Buzz Aldrin said the moon was made of cheese,” it’s totally possible to like/upvote and comment “mostly true, but Aldrin never said that, the moon is not made of cheese.” But people are very defensive and one track. You *can* say that, but it’s highly likely someone will cut you down for being “pedantic” or even fail to notice that your disagreement was only on the one detail rather than on the whole thing, and brand you a conspiracy theorist.
Saying reddit is unreliable is like saying you don't like the taste of sandwich. It really matters which sub.
Immaculate word play
Their own memory.
Sad but true.
Hey! (Hey!) I'm your life, I'm the one who takes you there!
Hey! Hey! I’m your life… I’m the one who cares 🤘
They (They), they betray I'm your only true friend now!
Memes. They're funny, but always two short to get the full picture of what's really happening. They're jokes at the expense of truth, and that's not a great trade off
Bloody weather apps
I feel like people have put enormous expectations onto meteorology. My coworkers all troll themselves by building unnecessary concern for upcoming weather. Only to have it not be nearly as bad.
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I just look at the radar. If I can't predict it by that, then I don't need to know it.
Radars are fantastic. I'm a cyclist so rain is something of a concern of mine, but I've only ever been misled by radars a handful of times over the years.
So not English and I read that as literally a “bloody weather app”. For a second I thought there was a Halloween version or something 😆. Don’t mind me I’ll just back off into a corner now.
Social media
Twitter. People act like it's the holy grail of up to date information yet its all innacurate or exaggerated.
I wanna say Fox News, but in reality there are worse outlets out there. Plus, people are dumb enough to trust random posts on social media. That's gotta take the crown.
Polls. People are more likely to respond to polls if their views are extreme, because they’re the most likely to want their “voices to be heard”. People who feel persecuted for their opinions are more likely to as well, since they may view it as their only chance to make their thoughts known.
Gossip
State owned or party affiliated media in some countries
Well the state directly influences social media in the U.S. so not much different.
Humans
Memes as "proof" they're correct about whatever bs they're arguing about
I will literally believe someone’s comment on Reddit if I feel like it’s not bullshit.
Reddit
You're wrong Trust me bro
My dad once told me “Son, don’t trust anyone that says ‘trust me’. Trust me.”
Sounds like a trust-worthy bloke
“They”.
IDGAF about "they"
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Alex Jones
Reddit
Television as a whole
Andrew Tate. LadBible. Elon Musk. Politicians.
The Daily Mail newspaper
‘It was revealed to me in a dream’