Misinformation abounds and all too many people simply accept it as fact. Social media helps this process greatly. A Facebook meme has the credibility of clinical research.
Conventional wisdom said we are predisposed to accepting information if it fits with our political ideology and preconceived ideas. Now new research says we just don’t take time to think. We read too fast and make a quick judgement.
I often look at FB posts and say to myself, that doesn’t make sense, that isn’t logical. I then do a little research to find several sources to confirm or refute the post. My instinct is usually right, the post is misleading or completely fake.
However, in the meantime the post has received thousands of comments and likes and has been shared around the globe spreading the false information.
Take the time to read and think about what you are reading
The takeaway, Rand says, is that people who scroll quickly through social media might be less susceptible to misinformation if they simply slow down to consider what they’re reading. “Our findings suggest that getting people to reason more is a good thing,” he says. “When you’re on social media, stop and think.”
Rand’s new findings seem to bump up against the long-established idea that we’re less critical of information that reinforces our ideology or identity. Indeed, there’s plenty of evidence that partisan alignment affects our judgments. In a meta-analysis of 51 experimental studies, Peter Ditto, PhD, a professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues found that liberals and conservatives were both likely to evaluate information more favorably when it supported their own political beliefs (Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2018).
The https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fake-news
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
When Brandon gets in front of a mike and asserts that his administration’s actions will lower the federal deficit by over a trillion dollars (2021 – 2022, vs 2020 – 2021) and news reporters ignore the context which shows this is a total misrepresentation, what are you supposed to do?
When Obama asserts Bush 2 deficits are unpatriotic, then dramatically increases spend, deficits and debt, nearly doubling debt accumulated in first 200 years, what are you supposed to do?
When Brandon blames all current inflation on Putin, when everything through 2/28 (last CPI report) was before the Ukrainian war and suspension of Russian oil imports, what are you supposed to do?
Re: recent NY Times admission that the laptop was Hunters and that he/Joe benefited greatly by selling influence, what are you to think when Clapper and others asserted that the laptop was “Russian disinformation” when the NY Times and almost everyone else printed those lies, what are you to do?
When leaders lie and misrepresent … and “news” repeats that crap …
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If Joseph Goebbels had today’s social media apparatus at his disposal, the whole world would be German colonies.
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The so called information or news sites are now more opinion than facts. They depend on people not knowing any background material so their spin is accepted as gospel. We are now so divided that honest discussion is hard to come by. No one has time to fact check the stuff they read so if it sounds good it must be true in their mind if it suits their own position. There have always been political factions and divisions of opinions but nothing like now.
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“If it’s too good to be true, it isn’t ” applies to most things on the internet just like in finance. Just because you want it to be true doesn’t make it so. Sometimes on the internet it is hard to find the source article that everyone is copying or an independent article confirming what you read. Group think is so easy when everyone likes or agrees. So many sources are so biased too. Even the war in the Ukraine, people are posting videos from games showing tanks being destroyed that it is hard to know what the truth is.
On the other hand. some satire sites like the Babylonbee or the Onion are so good that they are believable. You just want to believe. Maybe it is because over time, so much of their satire has come true.
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