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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It's a pretty regulaely a big problem here.
But to answer your question, just check sources, verify with a second outlet, and call it out when you see it. That's all you can do on an individual level.
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If I need 10 downvotes to make you disappear then I only need 10 Smurf accounts.
At the same time, 10 might be a large portion of some communities while miniscule in others.
I suppose you limit votes to those in the specific community, but then you’d have to track their activity to see if they’re real or just griefing, and track activity in relation to others to see if they’re independent or all grief together. And moderators would need tools to not only discover but to manage briefing, to configure sensitivity
you're right. the threshold is entirely dependent on the size of the community. it would probably be derived from some part of community subscribers and user interactions for the week/month.
should a comment be overwhelmingly positive that would offset the threshold further.
in regards to griefing, if a comment or post is overwhelmingly upvoted and hits the downvote threshold that's when mods step in to investigate and make a decision. if it's found to not break rules or is beneficial to the community all downvoters are issued a demerit. after so many demerits those users are silenced in the community and follow through typical "cool down" processes or are permanently silenced for continued abuse.
the same could be done for the flip-side where comments are upvote skewed.
in this way, the community content is curated by the community and nurtured by the mods.
appeals could be implemented for users whom have been silenced and fell through the cracks, and further action could be taken against mods that routinely abuse or game the system by the admins.
I think it would also be beneficial to remove the concept of usernames from content. they would still exist for administrative purposes and to identify problem users, but I think communities would benefit from the "double blind" test. there's been plenty of times I have been downvoted just because of a previous interaction. also the same, I have upvoted because of a well known user or previous interaction with that user.
it's important to note this would change the psychological point of upvote and downvotes. currently they're used in more of an "I agree with" or "I cannot accept that". using the rules I've brought up would require users to understand they have just as much to risk for upvoting or downvoting content. so when a user casts their vote, they truly believe it's in the interests of the community at large and they want that kind of content within the community. to downvote means they think the content doesn't meet the criteria for the community. should users continue to arbitrarily upvote or downvote based on their personal preferences instead of community based objectivity, they might find themselves silenced from the community.
it's based on the principles of "what is good for society is good for me" and silences anyone in the community that doesn't meet the standards of that community.
for example, a community that is strictly for women wouldn't need to block men. as soon as a man would self identify or share ideas that aren't respondent to the community they would be silenced pretty quickly. some women might even be silenced but they would undoubtedly have shared ideas that were rejected by the community at large. this mimics the self-regulation that society has used for thousands of years IMO.
I think we need to stop looking at social networks as platforms for the individuals and look at them as platforms for the community as a whole. that's really the only way we can block toxicity and misinformation from our communities. undoubtedly it will create echo chambers
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Lol misinformation is still an issue on Lemmy, don't kid yourself
Wait, you mean Stalin wasnt a cuddly teddy bear?
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Note that Wikipedia is not a proper source.
Ruh roh. Better inform the mods over at /c/wikipedia
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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.male/right wing
Hahaha. "male slash right-wing" what are you on about
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Misinformation is part of the nature of social media and can't be fixed. Stupid people are stupid. There are A LOT of them on social media. The dishonest take advantage of the stupid to spread misinformation. The only way to counteract it is to have gatekeeping, which will crush the user count and block out the biggest users, and network effect will funnel most of the rest into the biggest. (i.e. the one with the most lenient gatekeeping)
The only hope is that people realize how stupid, unrepresentative, and unsuitable social media discourse is. It's a place to find funny pictures of cats and boobs. Looking to it for anything serious, or pretending what you see there is representative of anything, is pointless at best and likely harmful.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
What concrete steps can be taken to combat misinformation on social media? […]
Regarding my own content: I do my best to cite any claim that I make, no matter how trivial. If I make a statement for which I lack confidence in its veracity, I do my best to convey that uncertainty. I do my best to convey explicitly whether a statement is a joke, or sarcasm.
Fundamentally, my approach to this issue is based on this quote:
Rationality is not a character trait, it's a process. If you fool yourself into believing that you're rational by default, you open yourself up to the most irrational thinking. ^[1]^
Regarding the content of others: If I come across something that I believe to be false, I try to politely respond to it with a sufficiently and honestly cited statement explaining why I think it is false. If I come across something of unknown veracity/clarity, I try to politely challenge the individual responsible to clarify their intent/meaning.
For clarity, I have no evidence to support that what I'm doing is an effective means to this end, but I want to believe that it's helping in at least some small way.
::: spoiler References
- Type: Comment. Author: "@The8BitPianist". Publisher: [Type: Post (Video). Title: "On These Questions, Smarter People Do Worse". Author: "Veritasium" ("@veritasium"). Publisher: YouTube. Published: 2024-11-04T16:48:03Z. URI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_OApdxcno.]. Published: 2024-11-04T09:06:26Z. Accessed: 2025-03-29T07:48Z. URI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_OApdxcno&lc=Ugy6vV7Z3EeFHkdfbHl4AaABAg.
:::What concrete steps can be taken to combat misinformation on social media?
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
[misinformation] is hardly an issue on this platform […]
In my opinion, that statement of yours is, ironically, responsible for why there may be an issue with misinformation. You state it with certainty, yet you provide no source to back up your claim. It is my belief that this sort of conjecture is at the source of misinformation issues.
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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.
I look at any individual’s history when they post anything sketchy and contextualize. […]
I am concerned that this would distill down to argumentum ad hominem.
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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.
[…] read how to read a book […]
Thank you for the recommendation
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Teach people how to cite appropriately.
We learned how to do it in middle school, but I can tell most of my adult peers either didn't pay attention or forgot.
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I don't know but the outright lies on Facebook are making me mad. People actually believe JK Rowling is suing HBO over the casting of Snape when in reality, she is helping produce the show and is fine with the casting
