RE: 🌆 The Bright Lights of London
I almost never talk about politics. People are much friendlier until they discuss politics or religion.
Ha ha. This is so true. It's also the reason that I deleted my Facebook account. We had Brexit which some people felt so strongly about, that they would insult everybody who had the opposite opinion. The lies and pointless arguments that were had, none of which would change anything - fuelled by a blood-thirsty media, desperate for viewers at any cost.
Then we had Covid - which propagated its own lies and misinformation - everybody suddenly becoming a medical expert with their own advice. "it's the government trying to control you", "Rub your face in a dog's anus for 10 minutes per day and you'll become immune", etc.
On a talk show this morning, they had somebody arguing that the vaccination was more dangerous than remaining unvaccinated. I turned it off.
And platforms like Steemit allowing this type of misinformation to be spread. Speaking of which, (I'm going off-topic somewhat,) I read this the other day - https://www.dailydot.com/debug/qanon-steemit/ - Steemit being blamed for the popularity of QAnon and all of its crackpot conspiracy theories.
It feels like you're passionate about the media.
I stopped watching the news on TV 5 years ago. Now I learn everything exclusively in text format and only from the media I trust.
We also have such "experts". One of them works with me in the office. He is the only one who has not been vaccinated and believes that we all have already changed DNA.
What prevents me from writing on Steemit that there is a race of aliens among us, and then persistently proving it. Freedom is good, but there must be a framework. As with plagiarism, someone should be interested in verifying the information.
It is possible that Steemit is covered by other misinformation.
It's all just so angry. In a bid to get viewers, they need to sensationalise everything to the point at which something mundane becomes a headline story. Or headlines like "Why I spend 10 minutes every day rubbing my face in a dog's anus". I'd rather live in ignorance.
It'll be a sad day when somebody close to him dies because he persuaded them not to get vaccinated. Sadly, there are many people like this about who know better than the scientists. Or who don't trust the scientists.
There's enough of it - people giving Covid advice to people in poorer countries who can't get vaccinated. Ridiculous things like eating cocoa powder and shit like that helping to build immunity. There are academic papers suggesting the Vitamin D helps your immune system but not significant enough evidence for it to be proven. Now I'm pretending to be an expert when I'm not.
The debate that many have on platforms such as this is that they're supposed to be "decentralised" and the "freedom of speech" argument, irrespective of what that speech entails.
But you have the BBC. It seems to me that they do not cross the border.
The way to fight plagiarism on Steemit is clear to me, but how to deal with false information is completely unknown. If I tell someone that he wrote nonsense and give evidence, he will give me 10 dubious evidence in his defense. This can go on indefinitely. And exposing false information is a big waste of time that can be spent more productively. Apparently we can't do anything with false information on Steemit.
Unfortunately, they do. They've been losing viewers for years and so they've started being rude to people too. You can almost hear the producers saying "ask him this, argue about that" and some of the nicest people on television have started being rude to people. Sadly, the BBC is no better than any of the other channels now.
I don't think we can do anything about false information because what are obviously lies to many of us, are somebody else's truth. There are some proper loonies floating around - it's best to keep out of their way!
Until now, I thought that this was a problem of the Ukrainian press. Our press is so fiercely hostile that sometimes people from eastern Ukraine are afraid to come to western Ukraine, and vice versa.
I'm sorry to hear the BBC is no better. It was one of those media that I trusted, though not 100 percent.
Money rules everywhere and everyone.
That's true. Tell anti-vaccineers that the vaccine will help them defeat the coronavirus. They will consider you a liar.
They're supposed to be impartial but that's been brought into question - especially during Brexit where there was a clear pro-remain bias. Every media outlet has their own agenda, some are explicit in saying so but others probably aren't aware of their own biases.