The problem with too much information

Concart said:
Yes, all the sites feed you what you want. But none of those algorithms are controlled by the government of an adversarial country. And that is. IMHO, incredibly dangerous, given how easily swayed it appears some people are. It is cult behavior. And reinforcing the beliefs of that cult is exactly what Russia, China, and the Trump campaign are hoping for.
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I can’t claim to pay that close of attention but what I have read about the TikTok debate I’ll admit to being swayed by both the pro and con arguments.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Growing up with the internet is a major part of the current generation's problem.

If you want to know who played left tackle for the 1968 New York Jets, the internet is fabulous.
It will tell you how many doubles Ted Williams hit in 1941.
If you need to know Britney Spears' birthday, you're golden.
It can even show you how to re-caulk your bathtub.

But it gives a forum to totally unqualified and unvetted news sources,
and young people respond to them as if they actually were Walter Cronkite.
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Old people are more likely to support Trump, and young people were more likely to support Biden and Obama.

So I am not convinced yet that young people are the real rubes and idiots.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Growing up with the internet is a major part of the current generation's problem.

If you want to know who played left tackle for the 1968 New York Jets, the internet is fabulous.
It will tell you how many doubles Ted Williams hit in 1941.
If you need to know Britney Spears' birthday, you're golden.
It can even show you how to re-caulk your bathtub.

But it gives a forum to totally unqualified and unvetted news sources,
and young people respond to them as if they actually were Walter Cronkite.
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Young people tend not to read the newspaper and watch the nightly news like older generations have. A good percentage of young people get their political news from TikTok for instance. It’s a different world they are growing up in as to how they get and consume info.
 
MSNBC and CNN did not pay nearly a billion to Dominion for telling lies over and over about their company and machines. Fox did. What OAN paid to Smartec was not released to the public as part of the deal they made. But they had to pay. Nope, they are not the same.
 
Nordberg said:
MSNBC and CNN did not pay nearly a billion to Dominion for telling lies over and over about their company and machines. Fox did. What OAN paid to Smartec was not released to the public as part of the deal they made. But they had to pay. Nope, they are not the same.
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Good post. FOX was deliberately lying.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1802449235566051385

Tucker Carlson: "I'm going to tell the truth no matter what, period. And I'm going to say it as loudly as I possibly can recognizing the whole time that the consequences could be very severe...What did you expect life was gonna be about? Just ordering shit from Amazon?... Know that telling the truth is enough to get you killed. Just telling the truth is that offensive to them to the people in charge because they're not just liars, their currency is lies, they're about lies, the whole thing is a lie and the truth is the most offensive thing to them..."
 
Concart said:
What I would like you to admit is that there is not an equivalency. Because there isn't. And I would challenge your statement that Tik Tok is no worse than Fox News or MSNBC. It is far worse than either. And I would challenge your assertion that those two sources are equivalent. MSNBC has not been slapped with defamation lawsuits. So I'm not buying. MSNBC is news commentary with a left slant, but they don't lie about things that are objectively true.
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OMG, every time hosts and co-hosts on MSDNC open their immature mouths out comes a huge lie. MSDNC is no
different than someone watching and listening to those dopes on the View. And the only reason I know about those
View dopes is because they post highlights of their propaganda, lies, and outright stupid audio/videos occasionally at
the fact-filled FOX NEWS where it's giving it's viewers something something else to laugh about concerning the hapless
Dems.
 
Hume said:
A moment of decline.

The US went from wondering how Germany fell for Hitler to having our own Hitler in Trump.
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Puh-leeze.

The Nazis were socialists, dude. They were fascists. Fascism is a form of socialism. Trump is a capitalist. Hitler is dead, and this isn't Germany, and Trump is not a socialist.
 
Concart said:
Food for thought. When I was growing up, we got out news from a half hour nightly news show and the daily paper. It was doled out with comment, and with a partisan agenda. Those things were reserved for the editorial page. But those sources were actual journalism. Just the facts. And because of that, Americans had a common understanding of what was objectively true. Walter Cronkite told us that 2+2=4. And so did the other anchors, and the daily newspapers. When they said something was factual, you could count on the fact that they had applied journalistic standards in determining the veracity of what they reported. While those sources still exist, they are now being drowned out by sloppy, lazy, partisan news sources. People actually believe what they hear on Tik Tok, or facebook, or Newsmax, or OAN. Someone here suggested that his go to news portal was where the truth could be found, and yet they referred to the President of the United States as a pedophile. It's lazy confirmation bias, but that's where we are today. Do you know that Jason Aldean turned down a half a billion dollars to collaborate with Taylor Swift, because she's 'too woke'. Or that Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert have been fired by ABC. The fact that Steven Colbert doesn't even work for ABC seems not to matter to the tens of thousands of people who commented praising ABC for their decision.

We live in a time where we feel entitled to be lazy and stupid. And the people who have most fallen into this trap are people who now want an authoritarian dictator to run the country, because it is easier for them. It's embarrassing. But this is where we have arrived. We no longer have a common reality, and there is no chance that we can ever come up with solutions, because so many people have invented problems that do not exist.


Discuss.
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There is no discussion necessary. You told it exactly how it is. Just like Cronkite’s signoff.
 
cawacko said:
I could give a long list of misinformation that liberals spout that they get from liberal sites but in reality what would that accomplish? It would simply turn into another partisan pissing match, like almost all discussions.

Misinformation isn’t new but yes, with the internet and now social media we have much easier access to it. And yes, many people live in their partisan echo chambers.

There’s no turning back the clock to where we had basically three channels and we all watched the same news and TV shows.

A majority of young people get their political info from TikTok. Not sure if that’s better or worse than the many who get it from MSNBC or Fox News. (there is no winner in either scenario).
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It’s so much easier to spread lies because they can be tailored to fit whatever audience the author wishes to address. Lies have no limitations.

The truth, however, is limited. It’s bound by reality. And often, very boring.
 
domer76 said:
It’s so much easier to spread lies because they can be tailored to fit whatever audience the author wishes to address. Lies have no limitations.

The truth, however, is limited. It’s bound by reality. And often, very boring.
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Only if the audience is both generally ignorant and has never learned how to spot lies and liars.
 
Concart said:
Food for thought. When I was growing up, we got out news from a half hour nightly news show and the daily paper. It was doled out with comment, and with a partisan agenda. Those things were reserved for the editorial page. But those sources were actual journalism. Just the facts. And because of that, Americans had a common understanding of what was objectively true. Walter Cronkite told us that 2+2=4. And so did the other anchors, and the daily newspapers. When they said something was factual, you could count on the fact that they had applied journalistic standards in determining the veracity of what they reported. While those sources still exist, they are now being drowned out by sloppy, lazy, partisan news sources. People actually believe what they hear on Tik Tok, or facebook, or Newsmax, or OAN. Someone here suggested that his go to news portal was where the truth could be found, and yet they referred to the President of the United States as a pedophile. It's lazy confirmation bias, but that's where we are today. Do you know that Jason Aldean turned down a half a billion dollars to collaborate with Taylor Swift, because she's 'too woke'. Or that Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert have been fired by ABC. The fact that Steven Colbert doesn't even work for ABC seems not to matter to the tens of thousands of people who commented praising ABC for their decision.

We live in a time where we feel entitled to be lazy and stupid. And the people who have most fallen into this trap are people who now want an authoritarian dictator to run the country, because it is easier for them. It's embarrassing. But this is where we have arrived. We no longer have a common reality, and there is no chance that we can ever come up with solutions, because so many people have invented problems that do not exist.


Discuss.
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Neither the information, or how it is purveyed has really changed. Sure, there are lots more outlets serving it up, and they all have to varying degrees put a spin on it to turned it into a perverted lie.

What has changed is that today, within hours if one of those outlets does toss out some 'BIG LIE' it is discovered, pointed out, and discredited. If anything, a cottage industry has sprung up to prevent this from happening using the Appeal to Authority fallacy.

A good example of this recently was the letter by 51 "Intelligence leaders" that Hunter Biden's (aka Bagman) laptop was a Russian disinformation scheme. In the short term that worked, but today they have been disgraced and discredited and have spent any capital in trust they may have had. Fifty years ago, 75 years ago, that wouldn't be the case. They would have gotten away with the deception with no stain on their public reputations.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Growing up with the internet is a major part of the current generation's problem.

If you want to know who played left tackle for the 1968 New York Jets, the internet is fabulous.
It will tell you how many doubles Ted Williams hit in 1941.
If you need to know Britney Spears' birthday, you're golden.
It can even show you how to re-caulk your bathtub.

But it gives a forum to totally unqualified and unvetted news sources,
and young people respond to them as if they actually were Walter Cronkite.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it is an amazing thing that we now have, at our fingertips, the entire knowledge of the world. More information than we can possibly absorb. And the truth is all there, if it’s sought.

Then, the danger of all of that power being used malevolently.
 
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