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FiveThirtyEight is covering the efficacy of fact-checking and other methods to combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Fact-checking, after the fact, is better than nothing, it turns out. There are some common factors in the times when it has been done successfully:
Political scientists Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood conducted an exhaustive battery of surveys on fact-checking, across more than 10,000 participants and 13 studies that covered a range of political, economic and scientific topics. They found that 60 percent of respondents gave accurate answers when presented with a correction, while just 32 percent of respondents who were not given a correction expressed accurate beliefs. That’s pretty solid proof that fact-checking can work.
But Porter and Wood have found, alongside many other fact-checking researchers, some methods of fact-checking are more effective than others. Broadly speaking, the most effective fact checks have this in common:
- They are from highly credible sources (with extra credit for those that are also surprising, like Republicans contradicting other Republicans or Democrats contradicting other Democrats).
- They offer a new frame for thinking about the issue (that is, they don’t simply dismiss a claim as “wrong” or “unsubstantiated”).
- They don’t directly challenge one’s worldview and identity.
- They happen early, before a false narrative gains traction.
It is as much about psychology as actually rebutting the disinformation because factors like partisanship and worldview have strong effects, and it is hard to reach people inside their social control media echo chambers from an accurate source they will accept.
[Though often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, one is reminded of the adage: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”. --Ed.]
Previously:
(2020) Nearly Half of Twitter Accounts Pushing to Reopen America May be Bots
(2019) Russians Engaging in Ongoing 'Information Warfare,' FBI Director Says
(2019) How Fake News Spreads Like a Real Virus
(2019) More and More Countries are Mounting Disinformation Campaigns Online
(2019) At Defcon, Teaching Disinformation Campaigns Is Child's Play
(2018) Why You Stink at Fact-Checking
(2017) Americans Are “Under Siege” From Disinformation
(2015) Education Plus Ideology Exaggerates Rejection of Reality
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @12:28AM (25 children)
Shhhhh... you'll tip off the SJWs before they all get infected and die.
(Score: 5, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 05 2020, @12:43AM (24 children)
If you're keen on killing Americans, why don't you just take the advice of that Senator who advocated sending in the army to murder New Yorkers?
It would be much quicker than waiting for a virus to kill the people who disagree with you.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @12:53AM (2 children)
CrookedHillary advocated that? I thought she preferred to kill her enemies one by one,.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @05:31PM
Oh, I know it's so very hard for Republicans to actually keep up with the times but she hasn't been a Senator for over a decade. I appreciate your willingness to accept that women could actually be Senators, though. Must be so hard for you, what with how Nancy Pelosi has had more balls than Trump could ever aspire to. So good job! Here's a cookie and now run along and play while the grownups talk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @07:09PM
You're a disingenuous prick. Clinton left the Senate twelve years ago. Stop living in the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html [nytimes.com]
Further discussion of Tom "kill Americans with the US military" Cotton:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed-new-york-times.html [nytimes.com]
https://mobile.twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1267459561675468800 [twitter.com]
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/06/seth-meyers-ny-times-tom-cotton [vanityfair.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:13AM (20 children)
If it is, pray tell how you managed to make the tiny bundles of proteins and RNA understand and react to complex social interactions.
If it isn't, then aren't those protests guaranteed to kill more than all the police violence in a decade, combined?
If they aren't, then isn't the lockdown unnecessary and unreasonable?
If they aren't but it isn't, then aren't the logic circuits in your brain totally shorted out, from keeping contradictory beliefs?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 05 2020, @01:26AM (19 children)
Have 100,000 Americans died from Covid-19?
Could that possibly have been avoided?
Do American police murder black people at an alarming rate?
Has that same group been asking for the murders to stop? By doing things like kneeling at football games.
Have they been listened to?
Have they fuck.
Do you care? Of course you don't, as long as your team get to own the libs.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:38AM (3 children)
Probably not.
They could have broken into someone's house and got shot by the owner instead.
Cops go after anyone they feel won't cause them repercussions.
The same group? The cops? They're not going to open their mouths to talk themselves out of a job.
Depends if they haven't been deplatformed yet.
Now you're losing your syntax. Possibly because you are a foreigner trying to stoke up the flames in US politics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:49AM
They're all out to get you.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @02:13AM
It's obvious that you're a foreigner - how do you not know the common vernacular English used in America?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 05 2020, @02:28AM
Meh.
Disingenuous, deliberately missing the point. Poor effort at trolling.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 05 2020, @01:49AM (2 children)
Yes, yes they do. That needs fixing.
While we're at it, also note that U.S. police also murder white people and latinos at alarming rates, not as bad as black people but still "up there."
In my experience, it's mostly about harassment of the poor - and that's almost enough to explain the whole thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 05 2020, @02:26AM (1 child)
I'm sure harassment of the poor has something to do with it, but there are plenty of places in America where driving while black is a crime.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 05 2020, @01:05PM
Absolutely, source: Dad used to live in Louisiana.
I used to live in Miami, driving while poor got me "profiled" and pulled at least three times there - we're talking about: detained for 30+ minutes with no reason or reasonable explanation, followed up with over-the top intimidation and baseless charges by the cop. Come to think of it, every time a cop has pulled bald-lies out of their ass to lay some bullshit citation or intimidation on me they were driving solo.
I suppose the race card is what we're playing this round, but don't fool yourself - blacks make up 14% of the US population, the poorest 20% (and growing as we speak) are just as disenfranchised and harassed. Most of what you are seeing as "Black and White" today will resurface as "Poor and Rich" if we ever manage to get rid of the racial discrimination. Again: my model is Miami - a city where race isn't as much of a thing (sure, it's a thing, but not like backwoods Louisiana), but scads of money vs little money most definitely is. There, racial profiling is mostly just another way to estimate wealth from a distance.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @04:58AM (9 children)
You think that Minneapolis Police Department killing an innocent person who called them to report a crime is a race issue? It is not.
You think that Minneapolis Police Department killing a suspect in custody is a race issue? It is not.
Two incidents, 3 years apart, same fucking police department, nothing changed, just lot of incompetence and impunity.
"Do American police murder black people at an alarming rate?" Loaded statement. Not all killings are incidents of Murder. And amount of killing may be acceptable to some people, while amount of murde rmay be not.
Do American police kill more White people than Black people? Yes. Are there more White criminals than Black criminals? Yes. Does playing race game with statistcs help or hurt different demographics? Yes. Are there more Black criminals than White criminals per capita? Oh boy. Must be that waycism again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @07:17PM (8 children)
You're ignoring the fact that there are ~4.5 times more white people in the US than there are blacks.
If bias against blacks didn't exist, you'd expect that 4.5 times more whites would be killed by cops than blacks.
However, that isn't the case:
Since 2015, ~4,600 people in the US have been killed by cops. Of those 4,600, ~2,450 have been white and ~1,300 have been black.
Without bias against blacks, you'd expect that with ~2,450 whites killed, there would be ~550 blacks killed. Except the actual number is more than two times greater.
How do you explain such a disparity?
You're either ignorant of the facts or being disingenuous. Have a nice day!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/ [statista.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:05PM (7 children)
>How do you explain such a disparity?
Now control for robbery and violent crime. You make logical leap from "whites are 4.5 times the black population" therefore "there should be 4.5 more white deaths to cops". All things being equal maybe that is valid but all things are not equal including rates of violent crime, robbery, and resisting arrest. Those things will put you in more confrontational encounters with the police.
"Killed by cops" is not the statistic that matters since that includes justified actions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:11PM (6 children)
[Citation needed]
I provided the sources for my argument. You provided *zip*. Only innuendo not supported by data.
Ipso Facto, you may well be talking out of your ass. Good show!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:14PM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_statistics [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:45PM (4 children)
From the article you linked:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @10:05PM (3 children)
Did not say crime was caused by race. There is a disparity that is measured differently by race that should be accounted for when trying to understand potentially violent confrontations with the police.
There is a disparity in crime rates. Just like there is a disparity with "killed by cops". In the initial analysis the assumption "If bias against blacks didn't exist, you'd expect that 4.5 times more whites would be killed by cops." That doesn't control for violent crime rates that could impact "killed by cop" rates. I would argue that could explain the disparity you see in "killed by cops" more so than racism and simplistic population analysis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:22AM (1 child)
I'd say it was even more complicated than that.
I'd argue that while skin color definitely plays a role, socioeconomic status plays an even bigger role.
As to the original premise, it would be really interesting to see some research on ratios of different skin color (I won't use the term "race," as that implies that there is more than one species of sentient hominid on this planet -- and there is just the one -- Homo Sapiens) are implicated in police violence, broken down by reason for police interaction (shooting up a playground, robbing a liquor store, speeding, etc.) and injury profile.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, we don't have good statistics about police violence. Although I'd argue that many people are injured/killed by police when there is no need to do so. As was the case with George Floyd and many, many others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:53AM
Mostly agree. I don't like the simplistic extrapolation on populations to explain complex social issues that are more adequately explained with additional factors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @02:05PM
The problem with relying on statistics is that the statistics are biased because the policing is biased. Do you have any evidence that doesn't come from statistics collected from agencies that selectively enforce the law that black people at the same socioeconomic level are more likely to be violent than whites?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @12:10PM (1 child)
No they don't [twitter.com] won't hold my breath for twitter fact checkers to do their job here. How many black people were shot by black people in Chicago last weekend?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @03:55AM
How many idiots does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None, because you plus and all the rest still can't get it done.