Social media has remarkably small impact on Americans’ beliefs:
Social media had only a small influence on how much people believed falsehoods about candidates and issues in the last two presidential elections, a pair of new national studies found.
And Facebook -- which came under fire for spreading misinformation in the 2016 campaign -- actually reduced misperceptions by users in that election compared to those who consumed only other social media.
The results suggest that we need to put the dangers of social media spreading misinformation in perspective, said R. Kelly Garrett, author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
"Given the amount of attention given to the issue, it may seem surprising that social media doesn't have a larger impact on Americans' belief in falsehoods," Garrett said.
Journal Reference:
R. Kelly Garrett. Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (3): e0213500 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213500
The study lets Facebook off the hook for influencing the 2016 election. Further, the study found, "Results showed that, overall, Republicans beliefs tended to be less accurate than those of Democrats, which made sense because the falsehoods were a prominent part of the Republican campaign strategy, Garrett said."
There you have it. It's science.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:08PM (1 child)
Have you not noticed we get every day studies about the health impact of various foods and one day they're the worst, the next day essential...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:18PM
Especially Dihydrogen monoxide...
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:13PM (3 children)
Who paid for the study?
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:30PM
From the dx.doi.org link:
Author is R. Kelly Garrett at Ohio State's School of Communication in Columbus.
Let it be known that he is hereby found guilty of denialism of Russian meddling. It is likely he is, therefore, an incel.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:46PM (1 child)
It can be implied from the "outcome" that Facebook indirectly funded this 'study'. More 'science'... and they wonder why people scoff at scientists nowadays.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Friday March 29 2019, @01:47PM
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:26PM (2 children)
It is big science pushing propaganda!!! We Republicans are totally sane, hate fake news, and we see through the bullshit and have a 100% success rating of detecting such fake news. #Soros666BenghaziEmails
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @11:32PM (1 child)
Modded as "Flamebait"? Isn't anyone going to mod this up as "Funny"? Anyone???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:27AM
No.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:27PM (1 child)
What does Runaway 1956 think about this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:09AM
Runaway does not think the social media, the social media "thinks" him. For some value of "thinking".
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:50PM (12 children)
So people believed falsehoods. Social Media had little influence on this.
So then where did people first come into contact with these falsehoods?
They didn't magically appear in the minds of millions of ignorant people fully formed. Somebody spread those falsehoods.
Okay, so maybe this unnamed other social media.
What about political candidates themselves? Could they possibly spread falsehoods? (their lips are moving) Loudly. Publicly. Widely spread on mainstream media. And verifiably false.
No, I think, it couldn't be that. That would mean that millions of people are vulnerable to believing whatever they hear, or what they want to hear. And hearing what they want to believe. Because . . . my party is the right one!
So, eliminating other factors, the most likely cause is probably something else.
- - - OMG !!! - - -
Chemtrails! This is a well known tool in government mind control techniques and is certainly one that would be used to widely spread falsehoods. Because the Republicans are behind it!
And Aliens! Those UFOs aren't just sitting idly by as we try to inform ourselves about current events. They interfere with the airwaves and make news programs say things that weren't said in the broadcast studio! And our tax dollars support this. (most likely) Because the Democrats are working with aliens!
They want us to believe falsehoods -- such as a round Earth when anyone can see it is flat. And turtles all the way down.
Clearly the intarweb tubes and social media do not distribute falsehoods.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:08PM (3 children)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=medium&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0213500.g002
THe influence was different for different duhmographics, but that doesn't mean there's no influence. The influence of diet on health is different for those who have different diets (those who have a healthy diet benefit from their diet, those who have a shitty diet are harmed by more of it).
I won't spoil it, it's worth spending the 20 seconds working out what it says about whom (and how appropiate my diet analogy is).
And for the poster elsethread I just modded troll - I reckon the person you mention fits into one of the upper lines.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:34PM (2 children)
Here is a lickable clink [plos.org] to your graphic.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 29 2019, @01:04AM (1 child)
Another lickable link
http://thewowstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/beautiful_women_blurred_.jpg [thewowstyle.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @06:38AM
That's a really weird earring she has hanging off her left ear.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:10PM (1 child)
Television
Radio
Newspapers
Magazines
Social events
Water cooler
Bars
There are other means of interaction than social media, in case you had forgotten (or never experienced).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @01:54PM
The first four on your list are the only kind of interaction citizens are advised to engage in.
The last three items on the list may be considered subversive.
This announcement brought to you by the Ministry of Right Thinking.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Thursday March 28 2019, @11:33PM (3 children)
"Team Red" and "Team Blue" are to blame. Together and collectively.
I think that most people think of the candidates and political parties in much the same way as NASCAR drivers or sports teams. The side they back is beyond fault, while the other side is a bunch of barely human infidels who need to be "educated".
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 29 2019, @01:56AM (2 children)
Both sides are a bunch of barely human infidels who need to be educated.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @01:56PM (1 child)
They will educate each other.
To the death!
Steel cage education sessions!
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by etherscythe on Friday March 29 2019, @06:04PM
As much as I might be entertained (who gets to exercise their 2nd amendment!?), I don't want to give the impression that whoever "won" was actually right. We have enough trouble with that at the polls.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 29 2019, @01:49PM (1 child)
They're doing things to the soil.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @01:57PM
Aliens also supply the government with the invisible mind control brain lasers.
It's true. I read it online!
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:58PM (4 children)
Social media is known to present to their users only views that agree with their own - the so-called filter bubble [wikipedia.org].
I fully expect social media to entrench users in their beliefs, not confront them to other opinions. It's a sad sad thing that threatens democracy for society as a whole, and cultural enrichment for individuals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:17PM (3 children)
My (recently deceased) spouse fell into a filter bubble. I had to explain why all the "facts" in the postings were nonsense and how to search for alternate sources of information. It was sad and discouraging.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:34PM (2 children)
Probably around 90% of "normies" use go-ogle and failbook which both are total filter bubbles. It's horrible. It's well researched fact that this "social media" (what an oxymoron) tends to make people's opinions more extreme.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:06PM (1 child)
How you're conflating Google (the search engine) with Facebook (the social media site), I have no idea. Using Google to search for things isn't the same as using Facebook. One is a search engine (useful for all kinds of things), the other is a social media site (useful for keeping up with friends, and getting tabloid level news, aka Gossip).
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @02:51PM
If you think google (they call themselves both google and alphabet among other things these days to confuse you) is a search engine, you're clueless. It's mostly a spy company with a side order of advertisement and then a wee little bit of many other things, including web search service...
Now, when you perform a google search, you get your results. When somebody else inputs the same query, they potentially get wildly differing output, i.e. filter bubble. When you read whatever facebook serves you, you're getting whatever they feel like showing you, personally, another filter bubble. Or what did you mean exactly?
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:36PM (3 children)
Obviously you face a "few" problems when trying to study these kind of things...
Statistics to the rescue!
But now we have another problem...
That won't make decent headlines...
But by predicting that social media have a lot of influence, the outcome becomes that it is
That'll do nicely.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:43PM (1 child)
Social media only entrenched the views held by liberals/conservatives from their existing meatspace social network, and televised new sources. The republicans particularly, but also democrats to a lesser extent parroting verbatim soundbytes and 'facts' that were told to them by mainstream news (on both sides of the aisle) followed by whichever political buddies they enjoy sucking the cock of.
Independent thinking in America, whether you are 18 or 80 seems to be in short supply in America, and denialism is the status quo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:17PM
Exactly correct -- at least my experience is that people do not go on major social media sites for debate/discourse. They go there to fight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:32AM
How are you going to determine if something is fake news? Seriously, what if YOU are the one believing fake news?
The popular "fact checker" web sites have a bias that is obvious in two ways. One, similar statements are rated true or false based at least partly on who says them. Two, if you look at the founders and ownership, it is clear that these are people who strongly support the left. It is no accident that Hillary was openly pushing these web sites right in the middle of a debate; they are a funded part of the propaganda machine.
Simply put, there is no truth oracle.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:50PM (12 children)
From the referenced study:
So we are not dealing with issues raised online necessarily, or where the primary discourse on the items was online, but rather issues that made it onto the campaign trail and were judged to be inaccurate. Sounds to me like like an analysis of flooding risk by looking at roads with bridges rather than looking at how many people build homes in flood plains and then asking how many of the people along bridged roads got flooded out. (More seriously, conflating the falsehood perpetuated on the campaign trail as things which social media would influence, rather than looking at how issues which were social media based affected the campaigns). But I could be misreading that.
And the questions used are interesting.
Limitation recognitions were made that the 2016 data were more Republican-falsehood heavy, and that many of the issues had life before the election periods. No recognition that the 2012 data were about candidates and the 2016 data about issues, albeit party-divided issues AFAICT. And also an assumption that the issues discussed on the trail were the differences at the polls - although that could have been addressed and I missed that.
At what point are they comparing apples and oranges, or looking at an apple orchard to figure out how the celery is growing?
This sig for rent.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:00PM (11 children)
Here is Barack Obama, referring to his Muslim faith:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKGdkqfBICw [youtube.com]
That is right from his own mouth.
His father and stepfather were both Muslim. This alone is enough; it is a Muslim belief that the child of a Muslim is inescapably Muslim.
He grew up in Indonesia, going to a muslim school. What are the chances he didn't make the statement of Muslim faith, officially and irrevocably making him Muslim?
...
Now, if you want to claim that he wasn't a very active Muslim, sure, that much seems obvious. You can probably find examples of him with pork and alcohol, and he doesn't seem to face Mecca 5 times a day. Realistically he is probably an atheist at heart... but he would still qualify as a Muslim, because you can never leave. It is also pretty damn obvious that he has some serious positive feelings toward Islam, having even directed NASA (WTF!!!) to support Islam.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 29 2019, @12:33AM (9 children)
lol no.
You may believe that I am Muslim, but I only am if I believe I am a Muslim.
Muslim is not consequent to a human genotype. It is a label that applies to a belief system. If you don't believe, you aren't that.
Are you a [fill in the blank] just because I believe you are? Even if you are my offspring? Of course not. You are what you are, and my beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with it.
--
Reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 29 2019, @02:08AM (8 children)
lol no back at you.
In Islam, you learn from birth about Islam. You are presumed Muslim by virtue of having been taught. As you mature, you have two possible paths in life - remain Muslim, or become apostate. The penalty for apostasy is death. From Obama's own mouth, if Islam and the West are in conflict, he will support Islam.
Obama may not be a *good* Muslim, but he is Muslim.
Where you err, is by projecting our knowledge and values on another society. Islam values almost nothing that we value.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:16AM (2 children)
aaaaaaand triggered!
not even by Chelsea Manning, whose constitutional rights are being violated as we speak.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 29 2019, @02:31AM
Alright now, you can stop pulling my - uhhhh - FINGER.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:11AM
Actually, referring to Runaway at any given point in time as "triggered" is redundant, since he is in this state at any given time, and in fact, at all times.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:27PM
Oh, just like Jews, Christians, and Texans then. How stereotypical of you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Friday March 29 2019, @04:06PM (3 children)
Religious Bullshit. "You're a member of us whether you like it or not!" I was born and raised Roman Catholic, but I sure as fuck am not anymore.
Citation? I'm not finding that with a quick search.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 29 2019, @04:58PM (2 children)
Here's one person's take on Obama's words - and he is reasonable, in that he does point out that others have different interpretations: https://personalliberty.com/obama-really-say-will-stand-muslims/ [personalliberty.com]
Another one that is more defensive of Obama, and tries to put the quotes in context: https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-books/ [truthorfiction.com]
Obama accusers see one thing in the very same sentence in which Obama apologists see another thing. You should know by now that I scrutinize all of the presidents, and apologize for none. I have found myself in the uncomfortable position of defending most of them from totally unfair accusations. (Sucks to be Carter, I don't recall EVER defending him!)
IMO, Obama meant exactly what he is accused of meaning with that quote. Did Obama get aggressive with ISIS/ISIL/DAESH? Uhhh - no - he didn't. Did Obama kick ass anywhere? Not much. His Naval forces bagged Osama bin Laden, but I can't recall anything else that was even moderately impressive. Remember that "What difference does it make?" Clinton's blunder happened under Obama's leadership.
Yes, I do believe that Obama's first loyalty is to Islam. You may believe differently, of course.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday March 29 2019, @08:34PM (1 child)
You are correct, as I do think differently.
I wasn't looking for someone's interpretation of said quote, I was looking for the ACTUAL quote you attributed to Obama, which thanks to your second link I was able to find it.
You can interpret that how you like, but I'm thinking that you are taking that statement WAY out of context. He is talking about protecting AMERICAN CITIZENS that happen to be of Arab or Pakistani descent. Much like Japanese Americans were NOT protected during WWII.
I get it that you don't like Obama, but please vilify the man for the REAL shit that he did, and not bullshit like this.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @02:56PM
The far right is spouting fake news? Really? o_O
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:07PM
Sad when someone doesn't understand basic things about communication, eh AC? [psychologytoday.com]
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:58PM
But...Butt...muh Russia! It was HER TERN!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @09:57PM
Obviously social media is capable of changing ones opinion on anything. After all, as soon as hearing about this story we're all in agreement with the article.
Unless we're not, which would imply its actually correct ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:30PM (1 child)
That's what they WANT you to think.
(Oh, don't forget to like this story on Facefook and twat about it on Tweeter!)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @02:01PM
Will it at some point become illegal to NOT have a Facebook account?
Maybe because it will be somehow considered unpatriotic?
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 29 2019, @01:12AM (4 children)
Wasn't it social media responsible for the spread of that (Momo?) meme that parents were terrified for their kids killing themselves or whatever....
But no, no one's mind was influenced by social media then, was it.
Completely fake, but everyone believed it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:55AM
Momo-chan is mildly disturbing, but that's about it.
I keep having ontological problems with the fact that some people think the internet is Serious Business™. It's like I can't even.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @09:17AM (2 children)
What about Tide pods, still a baseless scare?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 29 2019, @11:05AM (1 child)
AAAAND, idiot's following idiots, INFLUENCED by social media: "Look, they're doing it, so should I!".
Tell me social media doesn't influence people....
Studies done by idiots FOR idiots...and Facebook....and Trump.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @02:59PM
a tautological tautology