This is something i noticed early on with the generational divide and misinformation on the internet. Older generations never had the internet in school, and this were never taught how to identify a truthful source. Those of us that grew up with the internet were drilled into our heads, “not everything on the internet is true.” From both our teachers and the generation who believes everything on the internet.
It was a big sticking point with my in-laws during covid. Theyd send me a link, and 5 minutes later id respond with, “that person never went to any college has no credentials to be commenting on the scientific and biological effects of vaccines. Here’s a published dr saying youre wrong.” Only to be met with, “you’re an idiot. Go get autism if you want.”
I think the flip side of this is Facebook or wherever the link was pushed to your in-laws (which is what I’d guess happened) feels… empowering. Those apps are literally optimized, with billions of dollars (and extensive science, especially psychology), to validate folk’s views in the pursuit of keeping them clicking. Their world’s telling them they’re right; of course your retort will feel offensive and wrong.
They’re in a trap.
And I still see lot of scientists posit ‘why is this happening?’ unironically on Twitter or something, which really frustrates me.
Every Facebook profile posted to /r/HermanCainAwards (the subreddit for mocking deluded people who died of COVID while spreading misinformation) was the same. Whatever the formula was it worked great at sucking in a specific sort of person
What’s incredible is Facebook is not liable for that at all.
What if… I dunno, a giant school peddled that same info? Or some religious figure got a ton of people killed? There’s really not a good metaphor for Facebook, which is why folks don’t really know of the sheer influence they command, yet are still treated like a garage startup operating a fair forum that needs legal protection.
My mother was born in mainland China, according to her, doctors were corrupt and would prescribe unnecessary medications or perform unnecessary medical procedures because the doctors were incentivised and get more money by doing so.
That’s why now in the US, he maintains the same beliefs, reluctant to let me get antidepressant medication, because she see the as “crutches”, unnecessary “happy pills” for “weak” people, “too many side effects”, “harmful for health”, “these doctors probably don’t know anything”, “it’s all in your head”.
It goes far as: “try this necklace that repels evil”, wtf lol.
Also: Fucking Wechat and the fucking “herbal medicine”/TCM or whatever🤦♂️
It’s not a new thing. The same issues were the case for television, radio, and newspapers. They had to teach media literacy before the internet too. You go back into the archives and you’ll see some wild misinformation that’s very reminiscent of what we see on the internet. We did have a brief few decades where we had a more consistent and adhered to set of standards, but these were by no means universal. The perception of reliable information is also skewed the combination of being less aware of misinformation when younger and by a unique period where mass reputable media were all saying the same thing… But that also meant they were leaving the same things out.
But the internet did change things. Standards have been blown up, misinformation is much faster and the volume of it is much higher. Our brains couldn’t keep up with 24hr news channels, let alone the cesspools of social media we have now.
This is something i noticed early on with the generational divide and misinformation on the internet. Older generations never had the internet in school, and this were never taught how to identify a truthful source. Those of us that grew up with the internet were drilled into our heads, “not everything on the internet is true.” From both our teachers and the generation who believes everything on the internet.
It was a big sticking point with my in-laws during covid. Theyd send me a link, and 5 minutes later id respond with, “that person never went to any college has no credentials to be commenting on the scientific and biological effects of vaccines. Here’s a published dr saying youre wrong.” Only to be met with, “you’re an idiot. Go get autism if you want.”
I think the flip side of this is Facebook or wherever the link was pushed to your in-laws (which is what I’d guess happened) feels… empowering. Those apps are literally optimized, with billions of dollars (and extensive science, especially psychology), to validate folk’s views in the pursuit of keeping them clicking. Their world’s telling them they’re right; of course your retort will feel offensive and wrong.
They’re in a trap.
And I still see lot of scientists posit ‘why is this happening?’ unironically on Twitter or something, which really frustrates me.
Every Facebook profile posted to /r/HermanCainAwards (the subreddit for mocking deluded people who died of COVID while spreading misinformation) was the same. Whatever the formula was it worked great at sucking in a specific sort of person
What’s incredible is Facebook is not liable for that at all.
What if… I dunno, a giant school peddled that same info? Or some religious figure got a ton of people killed? There’s really not a good metaphor for Facebook, which is why folks don’t really know of the sheer influence they command, yet are still treated like a garage startup operating a fair forum that needs legal protection.
Absolutely agree. The “internet” was not a harmful worldview reinforcing machine back when we were told not to cite GeoCities in our book reports.
Asking people to betray their dopamine is a monumental task. It’s like like challenging any other addiction.
Best way to change that is to shut down algorithms that have that bias, and mandate media literacy.
That doesn’t work because people like the algorithms, unfortunately. They win the attention war, and Trump is perfectly emblematic of this.
It’s also not even about ‘political bias’. Toxicity is the natural end state.
Some countries do take action. Mine does, by banning that.
I’ll provide a non-western perspective on this:
My mother was born in mainland China, according to her, doctors were corrupt and would prescribe unnecessary medications or perform unnecessary medical procedures because the doctors were incentivised and get more money by doing so.
That’s why now in the US, he maintains the same beliefs, reluctant to let me get antidepressant medication, because she see the as “crutches”, unnecessary “happy pills” for “weak” people, “too many side effects”, “harmful for health”, “these doctors probably don’t know anything”, “it’s all in your head”.
It goes far as: “try this necklace that repels evil”, wtf lol.
Also: Fucking Wechat and the fucking “herbal medicine”/TCM or whatever🤦♂️
The profit motive haunts me as well. regardless of what service or product im buying. Living on planet earth was not a good call.
It’s not a new thing. The same issues were the case for television, radio, and newspapers. They had to teach media literacy before the internet too. You go back into the archives and you’ll see some wild misinformation that’s very reminiscent of what we see on the internet. We did have a brief few decades where we had a more consistent and adhered to set of standards, but these were by no means universal. The perception of reliable information is also skewed the combination of being less aware of misinformation when younger and by a unique period where mass reputable media were all saying the same thing… But that also meant they were leaving the same things out.
But the internet did change things. Standards have been blown up, misinformation is much faster and the volume of it is much higher. Our brains couldn’t keep up with 24hr news channels, let alone the cesspools of social media we have now.