11-15-2016, 08:27 PM -
(11-15-2016, 07:35 PM)Alan Partridge Wrote: Fake news on social media is becoming a big issue
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/...lang=en-gb
I should know, I was victim to it much to everyones delight on here :lairdvoldemort:
I saw something, can't remember if it was off here or facebook, which was a headline on how Sanders could still become the president. Once you click on it, the article is all about the fact that people only read the headlines and never the content.
I think this has always been true of people, and largely explains why tabloids like The Sun are the best selling papers because people don't really want to understand an issue, they just want to reinforce the position they already hold. In the age of twitter and facebook a lot of this headline liking and sharing stuff, to me, is nothing but wishful thinking and virtue signaling where a headline represents a position someone wishes to express their support for and nothing more than that.
I've seen a lot of talk (not specifically on here, just generally) of how we're in a post-knowledge age and that this somehow explains why people voted for Brexit and Trump, but the other side are just as guilty of this. Who were the ones that massively relied upon supposedly expertly sourced data, that turned out to be badly wrong on voting day? I think the smug idiots who throw around polls that back their existing position are just as foolish as someone willing to believe every campaign promise. These people have no gut feeling, no instinct for which way the wind is blowing because they put all their faith in others they consider to be more informed than themselves, that's just as bad as the "Send 'em all back" tabloid headline readers.