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Do we really live in a post-truth world? Are we are all in now in social media bubbles?


McCracken

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I see these terms bandied about a lot these days.  The argument goes that social media and the proliferation of news sources on the internet mean that people are no longer challenged with views that do not chime with theirs and that they often reading fake-news that hasn't been verified.  

Am I the only one who is not buying this?  People have always chosen to spend time with people who think like they do.  Before the internet people would read a newspaper that reflected their views.  I can see some merit that new news sources do not have the same safe guards against fake news and the established ones.  But we only need to look at for example how the HIllsborough disaster was reported to see this is hardly a new problem.  Personally I think it's a good thing that the internet has empowered more groups with the power to be heard and I can't see how people can blame the internet/social media for false news when the Daily Mail and Fox News exist.

So what are your thoughts people?  Do we live in a post-truth world trapped in our social media bubbles?  And if so how is it really any different from before?

 

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These are snappy cutesy terms that attempt to pigeonhole something pretty complex. However there is no doubt that facts don't seem to matter to a large group of people. This is not a new phenomenon. Seems to have existed for as longs as humans have walked on two legs. 

The social media bubbles IS a new thing, and it's very real. But, as you said, people have long done something similar with newspapers and such. However, they've never had the sheer amount of content to do it with as the do now. There has never been more information available for consumption than there is now, and a lot of people seem overwhelmed by it to the point of blocking out everything that isn't readily familiar. 

It's ironic that the internet has served to divide people, after seemingly bringing the entire world together for a few brief moment. The world wide web is a huge group hug that you happily jump into only to realize that everyone else has really really bad breath. 

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I don't think it is a new thing as one of the first and still most famous examples for a social bubble was that journalist puzzled how Nixon could have become president because she didn't know anyone who had voted for him. This example is also interesting because this person was educated and probably at least of average intelligence so she should have been smart enough to have been aware of her bias/bubble but apparently she was not.

But as Relic says, it reached a new level with the incredible amount of information, more biased and unfiltered than ever, only a few clicks away. So one applies filters (or has them applied by favorites, feeds, digests etc.) to handle the overwhelming information and then one is back at the old biases or worse.

There might also be the effect of more positions having become impossible "in polite society" and this fact is provoking ever cruder violations of so-called PC by things crawling out from under stones/out of parent's basements... and everyone can open their youtube channel an spit forth half-baked nonsense.

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I don't really even know that it matters that it's not new. The sharing of information and networking is not new but that doesn't keep the internet from being a novelty in degree. 

As for people being challenged on views: well, yes, people can always have echo chambers. But we have to look at who is reacting.It's people disillusioned with the dream of the internet and looking back to some supposedly better time when there were three networks or something.Might be incredibly rose-tinted but that seems to be what they see. 

I think it's possible (though not necessarily correct) to argue that, back when say...tv news was more less crowded and didn't have its lunch being eaten by just about every site online,real or fake,  people did have to contend with the fact that those places would have a lot more power to shape the discourse.

Now the media finds it much harder to do that. A story can gain legs online regardless of what CNN says.

I believe that's where people are coming from. It's not so much that humans haven't always had an inclination towards cliquishness and filtering for things that validate their opinion, but if everyone is consuming the same mass media (rather than getting more and more focused on tailored news) other positions will at least have to filter through a bit. Of course, if you're near the ends of the spectrum I doubt you're that impressed with the idea.

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48 minutes ago, McCracken said:

 Personally I think it's a good thing that the internet has empowered more groups with the power to be heard and I can't see how people can blame the internet/social media for false news when the Daily Mail and Fox News exist.

So what are your thoughts people?  Do we live in a post-truth world trapped in our social media bubbles?  And if so how is it really any different from before?

 

The internet is just a technology/platform where old methods of information/disinformation can take new shapes. So yes, blaming the platform is a bit silly, but there is also a sort of blue-eyed innocence and naiveté from some of the internet activists who think the Internet and that type of networked communication are inherently and objectively Good. Since humans aren't, then this makes the idea of objective goodness of the concept of the Internet pretty silly too. It is no better than its practitioners, and currently the alt-right et al. have been able to make good use of old tactics on a new platform.

It's also not helped by how feeble the official response from authorities and media was at least initially. "Online isn't real" (in the same way a phone call isn't real?), "Just ignore the trolls and they will go away" (no, they didn't go away). Now here we are, and the people we tried to pretend weren't really real or we could just ignore away are in power.

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11 minutes ago, Lyanna Stark said:

The internet is just a technology/platform where old methods of information/disinformation can take new shapes. So yes, blaming the platform is a bit silly, but there is also a sort of blue-eyed innocence and naiveté from some of the internet activists who think the Internet and that type of networked communication are inherently and objectively Good. Since humans aren't, then this makes the idea of objective goodness of the concept of the Internet pretty silly too. It is no better than its practitioners, and currently the alt-right et al. have been able to make good use of old tactics on a new platform.

It's cause a bunch of ideologues really do operate under the assumption that truth shines, and they obviously have the truth so more information in tubes somewhere==good. 

Frankly, I have not been convinced at all by the gleeful celebrations over the death of the traditional media all sides of the internet circlejerk seem to share. All of them seem to have their problems, just with more smugness over having "solved" the problem of cable news or whatever. 

They seem just as subject to their own set of biases and problems.

 

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Castel, isn't a good thing the established media can no longer control the national discourse?  A lot of the talk of this false-news/post truth talk feels more like the elites outrage that they no longer can control the narrative.

Lyanna, i agree that it seems that this democratisation of news has only managed to replace old biased and false information with a more diverse range of false and biased information.

It does seem to have unleashed dark forces in the alt right which seem even worse than the status quo carefully managed by elites that we had before.

But how do you think the authorities and established media should have responded?  It seems part of the problem that many them sympathise with the alt-right views but just think they should be less crude in their delivery

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13 minutes ago, McCracken said:

Castel, isn't a good thing the established media can no longer control the national discourse?  A lot of the talk of this false-news/post truth talk feels more like the elites outrage that they no longer can control the narrative.

Lyanna, i agree that.  It seems that this democratisation of news has only managed replace old biased and false with a more diverse range of false and biased information.

It does seem to have unleashed dark forces in the alt right which seem even worse than the status quo carefully managed by elites that we had before.

But how do you think the authorities and established media should have responded?  It seems part of the problem that many them sympathise with the alt-right views but just think they should be less crude about it

We were having this discussion recently on elite control in political parties too: in theory I don't want three news networks to shape everything, anymore than I want nominees chosen in a smoky back room. But I simply don't trust a lot of the media that's risen up triumphantly crowing about the death of the traditional media. They cause their own set of problems, with their own sensitivity to ideologues and subscribers or people tailormade for their message. 

I simply don't trust that it'll work out.

As for the authorities on the alt-right: the alt-right isn't even the thing. The powers that be are incapable of reining in weird political outliers like Trump for a variety of reasons and not just cause they sympathize with the alt-right. They not only have no way to control the narrative they have undermined the media amongst their voters (putting aside that the media fucks up a lot in their coverage) to the point where there seems to be no way to hit the brakes on a disaster. 

They didn't fail to stop him cause they sympathized with the alt-right but because they apparently can't talk their people down.

To some this might be a good thing, it opens the door for populist candidates like Bernie Sanders regardless of what the establishment thinks. To some of us it opened the door for Trump, which is pretty bad. But I guess it depends on how you weigh the risk or how you see Trump, as a candidate. 

To me the problem with the US is that there are only two parties and everyone is wedded to them, so this becomes far more dangerous than if a single party in a multiparty system goes crazy. They nominate someone crazy and then you just lock them in a room and someone else steals their votes.In the US half the country falls in line, so it's a problem.

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I think the phenomenon is real.  What I worry is that attempts to "correct" it via State action will make the existing problem worse by engaging in some form of censorship.  

Consider there are those calling for a return of the "fairness doctrine".  If that returns do we really want Trump administration appointees in charge of administering the "fairness doctrine"?

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I'm not sure the existence of social media bubbles is a problem. The issue is really one of recognizing when you are in one. We see this now where people are grasping to understand what happened during this political cycle. If you are not aware of how to obtain information that provides a reasonably holistic view of what is truly happening around a topic you are interested in,  then the shock of opposing results becomes very painful. The opportunity to interact with others around media platform only makes reassurances around views more powerful and validates them even though they may be incorrect. I see this in equal ways when reading Huffington Post and Breitbart which are basically opposite sides of the same coin. 

 

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1 hour ago, zelticgar said:

 I see this in equal ways when reading Huffington Post and Breitbart which are basically opposite sides of the same coin. 

I don't really get statements like these. While both of those sites are certainly biased towards "left" and "right" Breitbart peddles in half truths and out right falsehoods. It also propagates divisive propaganda, in ways that the Huff Post doesn't even come close to.  

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1 hour ago, Relic said:

I don't really get statements like these. While both of those sites are certainly biased towards "left" and "right" Breitbart peddles in half truths and out right falsehoods. It also propagates divisive propaganda, in ways that the Huff Post doesn't even come close to.  

We live in this new reality where things are now 'equally bad' which makes it ok to support a view because the opposition supports something equally bad. Defense mechanism of false equivalency to make a person feel better about doing something they know is wrong, or used to be prior to these brave new regressive times? Donald Trump is a vile misogynistic blowhard troll sure, but Hillary is just as bad. Ugh.

 

And look, if you think Hillary is bad have at it. My point is simply that as candidates, as people, they are not equal. And it's insulting and lazy  (also part of our brave new world) to not learn and understand how anything is good or bad and why and then compare your like, 'feelings' instead of your 'knowledge'.

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4 hours ago, McCracken said:

Lyanna, i agree that it seems that this democratisation of news has only managed to replace old biased and false information with a more diverse range of false and biased information.

It does seem to have unleashed dark forces in the alt right which seem even worse than the status quo carefully managed by elites that we had before.

But how do you think the authorities and established media should have responded?  It seems part of the problem that many them sympathise with the alt-right views but just think they should be less crude in their delivery

I tend to think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the fourth estate and its role in society. The point of the media in liberal democracies is to examine those in power, and for that to work you need dedicated journalists and investigative journalism. So this whole "established media is false" is in itself disinformation. Sure, different media have biases, but that can generally be easily found out, or they declare it themselves (for instance where I live the largest two national newspapers declare themselves to be "independently liberal" and "independently socialdemocrat"). This is completely uncontroversial and it means that when we read them, we can assume that if they apply a certain ideology to a situation, it is clear from the start.

However, this means that people equal "declared bias" with "untruth" which clearly isn't the same. In fact, it is far more honest to try and declare your bias as best you can, since everyone is biased. The main complaint you can level at the "mainstream" media is that they are more concerned with getting income from advertising and sensationalist headlines, but to just run a blanket "they are filled with false information" is in itself an untruth, and what is worse, a sign of a total lack of critical thinking.

Once you get to pure falsified news though, what function do they fill? We've seen it time and time again from Fox News, the Daily Mail and the alt-right sites that they are quite happy to peddle everything from sensationalist half truths to outright lies. There is nothing good in diverse news if a large chunk of them are made up shite. It serves no function, it has no meaning apart from serving as propaganda.

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4 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I don't think it is a new thing as one of the first and still most famous examples for a social bubble was that journalist puzzled how Nixon could have become president because she didn't know anyone who had voted for him. This example is also interesting because this person was educated and probably at least of average intelligence so she should have been smart enough to have been aware of her bias/bubble but apparently she was not.

 

“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

Paulina Kael.

Seems like she was aware of it to me. Also: wasn't wondering how he won.

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1 hour ago, Relic said:

I don't really get statements like these. While both of those sites are certainly biased towards "left" and "right" Breitbart peddles in half truths and out right falsehoods. It also propagates divisive propaganda, in ways that the Huff Post doesn't even come close to.  

Hence my point. :) 

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Lyanna: Yes I agree that there is nothing wrong with bias when openly declared.  It's attempts by established news sources such as the BBC that claim to be objective that I find insidious.  Especially as in the case with the BBC when a news provider seems too cosy with those in power and sometimes act more like their mouth piece rather than holding them to account as they should.  I certainly don't believe that all old media is bad or fake, however I think it usually only give only one or two perspectives of how the establishment view events.

Falsified news obviously does not form a usefull function for society, however I think the question of whether they are a price worth paying to allow other perspectives to be heard is a valid one.  For example how important has non-traditional news sources been in promoting progressive casues such as women's and LGBT rights?  Thats not a rhetoirical question I would actually like to know.

It's hard to see how false news can be combated without using authoritative measures that would block the media from examining those in power.

I would be interested to hear any ideas people have in how this could be done.

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Media bias is usually a little more subtle than openly faked news. Far more often it is e.g. discussing a tax reform or sth. like that so that "average people" think they might suffer from higher taxes when this is not true at all, calling a tax on inherited riches "death tax" or claiming that such income "had already been taxed", claiming that tax rates that were common only 20 years ago would obviously "kill growth" etc. And these are all still fairly crude, usually it works even more indirectly.

And if all "official" and "respected" news sources only show "one side of the coin" (fairly common right now wrt to Syria and Russia) one has to search out alternatives to even become aware of the bias because otherwise one will simply take as approximate truth what all sources agree on.

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Everything old is new again. With the invention of movable type, publishing became something anyone could do. And they did. There was no need for truth to be handed down from on high anymore and the common people could and did print their own versions of what they saw around them. Look up the history of pamphleteers and the aversion to fact checking that they had.  It was just like social media but slower. In the end they killed themselves off as they were not trustworthy and did not deliver reliable information. Newspapers that did fact checking sprang up and now the cycle begins anew. 

Basing decisions about the future with unreliable information tends to be self correcting in the long run since  those that believe the lies end up losing out. In the meantime, we live in interesting times. 

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3 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Everything old is new again. With the invention of movable type, publishing became something anyone could do. And they did. There was no need for truth to be handed down from on high anymore and the common people could and did print their own versions of what they saw around them. Look up the history of pamphleteers and the aversion to fact checking that they had.  It was just like social media but slower. In the end they killed themselves off as they were not trustworthy and did not deliver reliable information. Newspapers that did fact checking sprang up and now the cycle begins anew. 

Basing decisions about the future with unreliable information tends to be self correcting in the long run since  those that believe the lies end up losing out. In the meantime, we live in interesting times. 

Maarsen,

An excellent point well stated.  Which another reason why I fear an over reaction.

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