What concrete steps can be taken to combat misinformation on social media? This problem is hardly an issue on this platform, but it certainly is elsewhere. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?
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Do you have any examples?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Easily the one I see the most is Trump talking about "they rigged the election and now I'm here." -- I'm pointing out this one specifically, because any dunderhead dipshit knows from context what he's talking about, but lemmy absolutely dives into the shallow end with it...
He's clearly making the claim that Dems rigged the 2020 election, and because of that, he's president in 2024 when ... I dunno - whatever 2 events are happening. (Fifa or some shit?) But EVERY fucking time on Lemmy it's like "See he's admitting he rigged the election!" and everyone just meep meeps into agreeance.
That's just one off the top of my head, and that's with blocking most politics-based subs. If lemmy can't even read or gather context from a sentence correctly -- There's no hope for the world.
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Lol misinformation is still an issue on Lemmy, don't kid yourself
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I think it is bots everywhere. Yeah, I have seen new and unused accounts post stuff with a clearly political agenda. We are in the age of individual targeting. A single very skilled dev could substantially alter public zeitgeist. It has become common for scripted botnets to exist. The idea of a nation like Israel the US or Russia creating such influence is well within scope. Russia brags about their ability to shape public opinion. I think the most influential people are actually not the super popular influencers. I think the real influencers are the next layer deeper like many people here. Super popular people are repackaging the things that people in places like here are not very good at communicating at scale. Maybe it is just my bias, but I often do projects and share ideas I have never seen before then watch others do them better than myself in ways that are far more popular than mine. I have no delusion of grandeur, it is just a pattern I've spotted a few times in life and seen it happen to others. The masses are mostly like a school of fish or mice following the piper blindly. People that are capable of thinking for themselves are the ones to watch carefully.
I’m not questioning whether such actors exist - I’m questioning why anyone would waste their time on a platform as tiny as Lemmy. Even if they were successful, the number of people they could sway here is minuscule. That time and effort would be far better spent on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, where the reach is exponentially greater.
I also question people’s ability to detect these actors in the first place. The common assumption seems to be that they’re pushing unpopular opinions that go against your beliefs - but I don’t think that’s their strategy. It seems far more effective to infiltrate echo chambers and feed the narrative within them, reinforcing the beliefs people already hold. That naturally escalates tensions with those in opposing camps, whose beliefs have also been artificially amplified.
I don’t think the main goal is to spread a specific worldview - it’s to sow chaos, distrust, and push society toward implosion from the inside.
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Easily the one I see the most is Trump talking about "they rigged the election and now I'm here." -- I'm pointing out this one specifically, because any dunderhead dipshit knows from context what he's talking about, but lemmy absolutely dives into the shallow end with it...
He's clearly making the claim that Dems rigged the 2020 election, and because of that, he's president in 2024 when ... I dunno - whatever 2 events are happening. (Fifa or some shit?) But EVERY fucking time on Lemmy it's like "See he's admitting he rigged the election!" and everyone just meep meeps into agreeance.
That's just one off the top of my head, and that's with blocking most politics-based subs. If lemmy can't even read or gather context from a sentence correctly -- There's no hope for the world.
Could the lemmings be referring to the old trope where some loudmouth (usually a conservative) bangs on about an issue with some minority group ad nauseum and then some time later it turns out they were actually a perpetrator of the thing they banged on about, ie every accusation is an admission of guilt?
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In US English classes at any level above middle school, the importance of finding valid sources and providing citations is emphasized, although that's mainly for essays and the like.
I could imagine it would be possible to adapt that mindset towards social media as well. Provide your sources, so you can prove you understand what you are saying. The foundations are there, they just need to be applied.
Except there are plenty of "sources" that spew even more BS. We can't even trust what comes out of our government anymore (by design).
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step 1. misinformation is a problem on every platform. full stop.
I think what you mean is maliciously manufactured information. still, I believe Lemmy is subject to it.
I believe that both types can be effectively dispatched by effectively moderating the community, but not in the sense that you might be thinking.
I believe that we are looking at community moderation from the wrong direction. today, the goal of the mod is to prune and remove undesired content and users. this creates high overhead and operational costs. it also increases chances for corruption and community instability. look no further than Reddit and lemmy for this where we have a handful of mods that are in-charge of multiple communities. who put them there? how do you remove them should they no longer have the communities best interests in mind? what power do I have as a user to bring attention to corruption?
I believe that if we flip the role of moderators to be instead guardians of what the community accepts instead of what they can see it greatly reduces the strain on mods and increases community involvement.
we already use a mechanism of up/down vote. should content hit a threshold below community standards, it's removed from view. should that user continue to receive below par results from inside the community, they are silenced. these par grades are rolling, so they would be able to interact within the community again after some time but continued abuse of the community could result in permanent silencing. should a user be unjustly silenced due to abuse, mod intervention is necessary. this would then flag the downvoters for abuse demerits and once a demerit threshold is hit, are silenced.
notice I keep saying silenced instead of blocked? that's because we shouldn't block their access to content or the community or even let them know nobody is seeing their content. in the case of malicious users/bots. the more time wasted on screaming into a void the less time wasted on corrupting another community. in-fact, I propose we allow these silenced users to interact with each other where they can continue to toxify and abuse each other in a spiraling chain of abuse that eventually results in their permanent silencing. all the while, the community governs itself and the users hum along unaware of what's going on in the background.
IMO it's up to the community to decide what is and isn't acceptable and mods are simply users within that community and are mechanisms to ensure voting abuse is kept in check.
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step one spread false info intentionally
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In US English classes at any level above middle school, the importance of finding valid sources and providing citations is emphasized, although that's mainly for essays and the like.
I could imagine it would be possible to adapt that mindset towards social media as well. Provide your sources, so you can prove you understand what you are saying. The foundations are there, they just need to be applied.
That's true, but from what I remember, half the class was either goofing off, sleeping, or straight up not there. Education as a whole isn't valued in the US anymore. Students/parents blame teachers when their kid doesn't magically absorb the information without doing any of the work or studying. Trade schools are becoming more popular because of the costs of college, but deep down, they think it's an easy way to make good money. Those trades require hard work as well. Cost of college is most definitely contributed to the overall lack of education but that's not causing the average US high schooler to have a reading level of a 5th grader in the UK.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
impossible, when the platform itself is the one enabling or promoting, google/youtube, meta all allows it and encourages because its more advertisement money, plus it shores up male/right wing voters which will benefit the companies in the long run in the form of low/non-existent taxes plus tax havens, they think long term. "left leaning"(that is not annoying tankie rhetoric) content is almost universally quashed or heavily astroturfed on most SOCIAL media.
Reddit is getting there. Only way is to host your own forum ,and have controls, probably some form automation to block trolls spammers.
the users should be cognizant what is being said and fact checking themselves to prevent themselves from being drawn into disinformation/misinformation. -
I've tried a lot and the problem is that the people are entrenched in their beliefs. They are in irrational states of mind on social media, and you can't rationally talk to people in that state of mind.
The most successful I've had is simply the Socratic method. Remain calm, simply ask open ended questions which are designed to just make them question their tightly held beliefs. Why are cities less safe, why do you feel this, etc. however even I find they will often just get angry at that even.
Ultimately, it's not social media which will win minds. It's in the open. I've had more luck meeting people casually in bars and talking to them vs on a keyboard
I've heard this method as a way to combat racism and transphobia as well (which I guess are based on misinformation). Most of the time people are just repeating what they've heard so it's good to get them to think about why they believe it, even if it doesn't fully change their mind.
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Do me! I'd honestly be interested in a report. I'm obviously not a bot, but what can you glean from my posts?
I generally tag people when they say things I either really enjoy or very strongly disagree with. You've said a lot of things I very strongly disagree with including things I have found to be right-wing and gun-minded according to the tag I picked for you.
It's not a complete and probably not an accurate judge of your character, I just choose to do this so that I don't have to engage in conversations with people where I feel it will be a waste of my energy.
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Do you seriously think someone is getting paid to come shill for a cause on Lemmy?
I have 100% seen blatant ads on here. Maybe not any big companies but people doing barely relevant self promotion and other weird site promotions.
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I'm only on Lemmy, but I don't think my individual decision will make a difference—and unfortunately, I don't think anyone should realistically expect it to.
I think anyone who is already here has recognized the problem.
You can't change the whole world but if you choose to point out misinformation among your real life group or in smaller communities, you can still make a difference.
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This problem is hardly an issue on this platform.
And this is the problem.
I see objectively misleading, clickbait headlines and articles from bad (eg not recommended by Wikipedia) sources float to the top of Lemmy all the time.
I call them out, but it seems mods are uninterested in enforcing more strict information hygiene.
Step 1 is teaching journalism and social media hygiene as a dedicated class in school, or on social media… And, well, the US is kinda past that being possible :/.
There might be hope for the rest of the world.
bad (eg not recommended by Wikipedia)
If you want to know why misinformation is so prominent, the fact that you think this is a good standard is a big part of it.
Step 1 is teaching journalism and social media hygiene as a dedicated class in school
And will those classes be teaching "Wikipedia is the indisputable rock of factuality, the holy Scripture from which truth flows"?
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Hey, just wanted to say I’m always grateful when someone calls out posts not linking to proper sources. Your doing good work, thanks!
Note that Wikipedia is not a proper source.
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If we want to go the route of the Responsibility of the Individual:
Resolve to not get your political etc. news from social media. Draw a line for yourself: cool to get gaming news from random influencers online? Probably. News about global events? At this point might be better for most people's mental health to ignore them and focus more locally. However, read how to read a book, make your best effort at finding a reputable news organization and check those for news if you must have them. On same vein, if you don't read at least some article about an event being discussed on social media, DON'T COMMENT. Don't engage with that post. If it really grabs at you, go find an article about it from a trusted source, and depending on how much it animates you, try to get a bigger picture of the event. Assume that vast majority of ALL CONTENT online is currently incentivized to engage you - to capture your attention, which is actually the most valuable asset you have. Where you put your attention will define how you feel about your life. It's highly advicable to put it where you feel love.Responsibility of the Collective:
Moving in hierarchies, we can start demanding that social media moderators (or whatever passes for those in any given site) prevent misinformation as much as possible. Try to only join communities that have mods that do this. Failing that, demand social media platforms prevent misinformation. Failing that, we can demand the government does more to prevent misinformation. All of those solutions have significant issues, one of them being they are all very incentivized to capture the attenttion of as many people as possible. Doesn't matter what the exact motivation is - it could be a geneinly good one. A news organization uses social media tactics to get the views so that their actually very factual and dilligently compiled articles get the spread. Or, they could be looking to drive their political agenda - which they necessarily do anyway because desire to be factual and as neutral as possible is a stance as well. One that may run afoul of the interests of some government that doesn't value freedom of press - which is very dangerous and you need to think hard for yourself how you feel about the idea of the government limiting what kind of information you can access. For the purposes of making this shorter, you can regard massive social media platforms as virtual governments too. In fact, it would be a good idea in general.The thing with misinformation is that many people who talk about it subtly think that they are above it themselves. They're thinking that they know they're not subject to propaganda and manipulation but it's the other poor fools that need to be protected from it. It's the Qanon and Antivaxxers. But you know better, you know how to dig deeper into massively complicated global topics and find out what the true and right opinion about them is. You can't. Not even if we weren't in the middle of multiple fucking information wars. You'd do well to focus on what you can know for sure, in your own experience. If you don't like the idea of individual responsibility though, because "most people aren't going to do it" - your best bet at getting a collective response is a group of individuals coming together under the same ideal. It'll happen sooner or later anyway and there's going to be plenty of suffering before either way.
we can start demanding that social media moderators (or whatever passes for those in any given site) prevent misinformation as much as possible.
Yeah, but how are you expecting moderators to determine what is and isn't misinformation?
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I look at any individual's history when they post anything sketchy and contextualize. Anything politically motivated is likely a shill unless they have a long broadly engaged post history across many subjects with depth. I block a lot of people too.
Anything politically motivated is likely a shill
Do you apply this to any political content? Or just politics you disagree with?
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Simply leaves social media, or believe nothing on it.
Academic books by experrs, peer-reviewed papers etc. are better.
Wikipedia and podcast/interviews with real experts (not pundits, I mean experts) are good too.
Wikipedia and podcast/interviews
If you're want to know how misinformation got so prominent, look at this as a good start.
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That's certainly a good point, but I'm less concerned with how to verify information than with how to counteract the constant flow of misinformation — especially on other platforms where misinformation is deliberately pushed, which is causing major problems in my home country alone.
How are you going to counter misinformation if you can't determine what is and isn't misinformation?
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we can start demanding that social media moderators (or whatever passes for those in any given site) prevent misinformation as much as possible.
Yeah, but how are you expecting moderators to determine what is and isn't misinformation?
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's one of the many issues with expecting a collective resolution. Question is: why do people feel they need to be able to discuss issues way beyond their understanding and personal experience online with others who also don't know much about it? If actually done well, moderation is a full time job but nobody is interested in paying a bunch of online jannies to clean their space.
That's why I favor individual responsibility, and opting out of the possibility of being exposed to (or perpetuating) misinformation. Maybe in the future we can have forums for verified experts of a field, where regular people can have discussions with them and ask questions etc. But these would be moderated places where you do need to bring proof and sound arguments, not emotionally charged headlines.
The stories and information posted on social media are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted as fact.
