Limited Attention and Information Overload Leads to Viral Misinformation (FakeNews)
All the hype about fake news -- and false, bad or incomplete information getting popularized -- is getting the attention of many, including social scientists. The mainstream news has it's own share of fake news, but the general focus and claim -- whether accurate or not -- is about misinformation and false information mostly coming from alternative media sources. The fake news (alternative or mainstream) gets accepted, as people are convinced it's true, and then they act on that justification to motivate their behavior.
The political atmosphere has been shifting in many countries, and many don't like these changes. To explain the rise in their popularity, the mainstream media say it's due to fake news; bad information. This allegedly led to more people voting for Trump in the US election of 2016. In Europe, they claim fake news has led to the rise of populist leaders that are gaining traction among people who are not satisfied with the current management.
Quality of Information (Low and High)
If we only have low quality information that is input as knowledge, then that is what we use to try to understand the situation and act upon it. Higher quality information will contain more knowledge that gives a better representation of the situation for us to act more accurately or wisely.
In a free market for truth, the idea is that as more contrast is brought to bear on information then people can discern which is more accurately reflecting reality, i.e. closest to the truth/reality. Think of a left-wing news agency vs. a right-wing news agency, where a political candidate did something wrong and the newspaper of their party would downplay the problem, but the opposing news agency would not. This misinformation prevents someone from having a better grasp on the truth of reality. People can eventually judge for themselves what is actually happening despite one repressing the truth of what a political candidate did.
Attention and Information Overload
But if we have too much information, like an information overload, then we can't discriminate the information as well. We have a limited attention for all that information that we get exposed to. The fake news, misinformation, hoaxes and scams can and do go viral like accurate information can. People not only get suckered by false information in their political leanings, but also in their purchasing or business decisions.
Oxford dictionary
Now that that we are in a post-truth world thanks to post-modernism, subjectivism and solipsism, we can supposedly trust the mainstream news to tell us what is or is not true. Sometimes it might be accurate, and sometimes the claim of fake news is the fake news, while they discredit truth.
Popular vs. Quality Information
When popularity comes into play, quality often takes a backseat as being of less salience, value or importance. Peer and other social influences can distort the perception and acquisition of quality vs. popular info. Our power to discern is diminished by information overload. Repetition is known as a way to influence people to accept something.
A recent study says that a weaker discriminative power can have trade-offs with more diverse information being taken in, like the idea of a market for truth where eventually the truth will out. But information overload and the frequency of information can lead to low-quality information being popularized or going viral. They eyeball the social media bots as a problem, which is also how fake news has fallen into the spotlight of national security forces which tries to link the bots in social media as a foreign attack to compromise US democratic values, etc.
Authors of the study say these bot accounts "make up a significant portion of online profiles and many of them flood social media with high volumes of low-quality information to manipulate the public discourse". Social media is just that, media that is shared and talked about. We get much of it from our friends, and most of us are driven by biases and other deficits in thinking. The media isn't verified in most cases, it's only shared. Discernment of reality is not really being done.
Info War
The battle is on for our minds. Ideas are being pushed, and we get sucked into them. As the saying goes, much of the time it's not us who have a grasp on the ideas but the ideas have us in their grasp instead. Fake news claims against false and true information will continue. Are we only in the beginning of the hype? How far will it go?
Is this the creation of a problem, in order to generate a reaction, and then provide a pre-determined solution? Is this going to lead to creating legislation and laws to control information? Will the alternative media survive what may be coming?
Excellent summary.
The news consumer must rely on his own critical thinking ability to determine the fakeness of any "news" story.
One tool is the A-1 matrix used by American military intelligence during WWII.
Once upon a time, military intelligence evaluated information on a 2 factor scale; A-E was the range for the reliability of a source, with a score of A representing the most trusted source; 1-5 was the range for the likelihood that the information was accurate, with a score of 1 indicating that the intelligence had been corroborated with another source( so if you got a report that a German tank division was running amok in Chicago during WWII, you would judge that to be a 5, not a likely event)
We can see that CNN has earned itself an E on this scale for it's long term dishonesty.
For those of you that find the concept of Information War interesting, or even crucial, check out the #informationwar tag.
There is no such thing as real news, all is fake news. But the term got more popular thanks to Donald J Trump, i do not like this guy but look what he did to the media, it is split in two groups, but their main purpose is the propaganda that they want to feed to our mind @krnel
one of the reasons Trump won was due to his willingness to call the media out for who they are
Yup that's the real solution I mentioned in my first fake news post last year, linked in the post above on discrediting truth. Critical thinking. The reliability of a source and the likelihood of accuracy is a good measure to think about. I'll think about using the #informationwar in my next posts related to fakenews hehe. Thanks for the feedback.
a real need in our educational system is the teaching of critical thinking skills and logic from a child's earliest years
I'm happy to report that Jonestown has lost a million subs since Trump took office! As many have seen through their blatant (ridiculous) propaganda for Trump (among other things)
They praise the President of the United States while pretending to be anti-establishment (let that sink in)
Alex Jones has pulled a full 180 on so many subjects, it's comical! They count on their fan base to have no memory. If anyone has doubts about this, I can offer undeniable evidence in a video I created titled - Jones (2006) VS Jones (modern)
Great post @krnel
It's like Orwell's 1984, the memory hole where things disappear as no longer being what happened.
Are we at war with Eurasia or Eastasia?
Are we at war with terrorists or funding them to take down other countries like Syria?
That sounds like a thoughtcrime.
Great post, that is exactly what I was thinking and couldnt get it down sussinctly like that. I am concerned that this platform will become sunset photos, cupcake recipes and holiday pics. My posts are torn between trying to inform and trying to be short enough to get a vote form mosquito sized attention spans. I'll keep plugging away though.
Haha, yeah. 500 words is what many like to tolerate. I often do over 1000 but still get some readers since I have many followers. It's hard to try to get info out... people just want the quicker easier fluff... Thanks for the feedback.
You make such a great point here. The media is always spreading fake news because that's what gets ratings. It's the same thing you see with politicians. If they repeat something long enough, more people will start to believe them. In an internet age where information is at your fingertips, you have to make sure to do the research and not fall victim to believing whatever you're told. It's almost like a shouting match and whoever speaks the loudest, wins. Don't be afraid to sit back, think a little bit, form your ideas, then you'll see the fake news for what it really is. Thanks for sharing!
I made this animated gif as part of a webcomic that I believes delves deep into the questions your post has asked, but answers none of them.
LOL, I can make some of these out, but they go by too fast ;)
The speed makes a tiny more sense in context https://steemit.com/comics/@cryplectibles/crypto-collectibles-presents-comics-tomorrow-today-this-week-with-space-ghost
Yeah I figured it was a play on short attentions pans, but I jut couldn't read them all the way through hehe.
Your post very accurately describes modern consumer marketing.
By "modern" I mean the techniques that have been used for the last 100 years or so to sell people overpriced things they don't need.
There's a core principle that the media & information marketers use. And I use that term advisedly, because they are marketers, not journalists as they would have you believe.
The core principle is that people buy based on emotional reasons, and then use "logic" to justify their decision.
Additionally, people, especially people in the "civilized" world; Love to buy, but hate being sold to.
Get those 2 things down and you can sell decades long wars to otherwise peace loving individuals.
I love your post layout. Awesome! Fake news do lead to misfortune. Have you read the Wall Street Journal vs Pewdiepie issue? WSJ released fake news about Pewdiepie, which then severed Pewd's relationship with Disney. The result, Pewd lost millions of dollars just because of misinformation.
By the way, we joined the same month/year and wow, you have 4K+ posts while I made very little progress.
Yeah I heard about it a few months ago. Falsity is powerful. All it takes is one lie to ruin someone. That's how powerful a lie can be. There can be 99% truth, but just one lie can take it all down... Hehe, yeah I've been posting and commenting. Thanks for the feedback.
Origin and context of the term 'fake news' is important: This piece leaves out the fact that it was actually the Washington Post and an anonymous group calling itself ProporNot that actually rolled out the 'fake news' agenda, and those orgs have an agenda of their own. This 'fake news' agenda was implemented in order to shout down the allegations that were made in the WikiLeaks Podesta emails which revealed the Clinton Foundations acceptance of millions of dollars in bribes from Saudi Arabia and Qatar who were knowingly funding ISIS. The Podesta emails clearly show this to be the case. The Podesta team openly discuss it in the emails. Link here to the actual emails and discussion:
https://steemit.com/news/@clarityofsignal/wikileaks-podesta-emails-reveals-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-giving-money-to-both-clinton-and-isis
Secondly, the Podesta emails also contained ongoing discussions about Pizza, which many people read as encrypted messaging for child sexual molestation. CBS46 reporter Ben Swann covered that subject in February 2017 and was promptly shut down for doing so. Thus, there is context related to the fake news agenda that is obviously missing in the above post. It was always a Deep State tool and Trump has simply taken it and used it against those who created it.
Link to Ben Swann post:
https://steemit.com/benswann/@dwinblood/ben-swann-update-i-found-a-website-that-is-pretty-thorough-at-this-pursuit#@clarityofsignal/re-dwinblood-re-clarityofsignal-re-dwinblood-ben-swann-update-i-found-a-website-that-is-pretty-thorough-at-this-pursuit-20170614t155005250z
This reminds me as well of the timing of the Russia narrative origins. I believe I read that the first mention of Russia was on the same day that it came out Donna Brazile had leaked primary debate questions to Clinton campaign. A deliberate and calculated distraction. Both Russia and Fake News were an attempt to divert people from paying attention to the actual damning content of Wikileaks.
I think your close, they had been testing it previously, but not fully implementing the Russia narrative ruse. They had attempted to label Julian Assange, Edward Snowdon and even Jill Stein as Russian 'stooges' during the summer in 2016. They had also gone after Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort for his work previously as a long ago consultant for Viktor Yankovich in Ukraine. They were basically testing it out during the spring and summer 2016.
When the election went to Trump they decided to go full bore and started associating it all with the Pizzagate story and going after alternative sites that were releasing crucial information about the whole charade. In a sense this has all been an elaborate smoke and mirrors show to cover up their regime change agenda with wars for profit in Ukraine, Libya and Syria......plus their support for the Gulf State terror states that finance ISIS. Its all distraction, projection and inversion. They are saying "hey look over there at Russia, do not look at the fact that WE are supporting Saudi Arabia.....and ISIS".
Also keep in mind that the American people are victims too as we have been constantly lied to so they can continue to get rich off our tax dollars while they carry out this murderous agenda in our name.....and by they I mean the Neocons, elitists, media vassals, MIC, Deep State, think tanks.....all who have now migrated from the right to the left. They operate on both sides of the aisle and will co-opt any movement that suits their agenda. Chuck Schumer=John McCain, Nancy Pelosi=Lindsey Graham, they are all the same liars and murderous cheats. Proof of this is in the attendees at AEI when they secretly meet at Sea Island, Ga each year. Both sides are in attendance as they plot how to continue to carry out their fake left vs right paradigm in accordance to the Hegelian Dialectic which they are conditioned in at their elite schools.
Good posts -- followed
Thank you for articulating this so well! Resteemed.
You're welcome, thanks for reading and the support.