Technology @lemmy.world boem @lemmy.world 3 wk. ago

Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation

www.nature.com Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation - Nature

This Perspective identifies common misperceptions regarding the harms of online misinformation, finding that exposure to false and inflammatory content is rare and concentrated among a small minority of people who already have extreme views.

6 comments

Pay wall
TLDR: You get misinformed, whoever you share it with gets misinformed and all it takes to spread this are random posts containing it.
- Did you read the abstract? This doesn’t seem to be what they’re saying at all.
  
  guess who's spreading misinformation :D
You only really get the choice between misinformed or uninformed, there is no option where you can be informed enough on the topics you need to know about.

While they are right that misinformation in social media is causing a lot of the problem I think misinformation in the press is also driving people to seek information in social media. You can't have governments and the press repeatedly proven to be lying and have the population accept that version of reality they push. What replaces it is a variety of conspiracy theories, some are just genuine conspiracies but definitely not in the mainstream press. This second aspect the research is consistently ignoring and it matters because its a large part of what is driving people to conspiracy theories. Fake news is not about Trumpnews or theonion its about the mainstream media however much they try to deflect from it.

You've viewed 6 comments.