The Great Social Media Political Fuckshow

[kalm]

So a customer of mine messaged this to me. He’s in his 70’s, retired air force, and also has a journalism degree from LSU. He’s a golfer, fisherman, and nice dude.



I watched 30 seconds and based on a hunch but without fact checking suggested it was heavily edited and that he research it.

He said it looked legit to him.

I then opened the link and saw it had 280,000 shares. Now add on the people who agreed with it, almost shared it, simply forgot to share it, or believed it but didn’t share.

This is why we can’t have nice things and why kalm has too many friends...

[UNI88]

So a customer of mine messaged this to me. He’s in his 70’s, retired air force, and also has a journalism degree from LSU. He’s a golfer, fisherman, and nice dude.



I watched 30 seconds and based on a hunch but without fact checking suggested it was heavily edited and that he research it.

He said it looked legit to him.

I then opened the link and saw it had 280,000 shares. Now add on the people who agreed with it, almost shared it, simply forgot to share it, or believed it but didn’t share.

This is why we can’t have nice things and why kalm has too many friends...

People who believe that video without checking it are as stupid as people that believe Trump is a Nazi.

[GannonFan]

I'm with kalmie on this one. What used to be relegated to weird corners of family parties or the obscure comment sections in online newspapers that no one read anyway, has just ballooned to disastrous proportions with the real breakthrough of social media. Ignorant people, on both sides of the aisle, are now able to hear the echo chamber they want of other similar ignorant people and like feedback through an amplifier, it just gets louder and louder. And the fact that even the monumentally stupid can find other people who agree with them just makes it even worse as it just reinforces whatever crazy notion they had. Trump is just an outcome of this quagmire, and heck, I'd even argue that the caricature that Obama became late in his term and now is an outcome as well. No idea where we're heading with all of this, but it sure does feel like the nose is pointing down and we're gaining speed.

[89Hen]

I watched 30 seconds and based on a hunch but without fact checking suggested it was heavily edited and that he research it.

You watched all 30 seconds of a 23 second video?

[kalm]

I watched 30 seconds and based on a hunch but without fact checking suggested it was heavily edited and that he research it.

You watched all 30 seconds of a 23 second video?

I honestly thought it was longer and didn’t look close enough.

Plus...I have VictorG level internet speed.

[Gil Dobie]

According to Snopes, it's been spliced from this

Leaders and dignitaries of the European Union; representatives of our NATO Alliance; distinguished guests: We meet here at a moment of testing for Europe and the United States, and for the international order that we have worked for generations to build.

Throughout human history, societies have grappled with fundamental questions of how to organize themselves, the proper relationship between the individual and the state, the best means to resolve inevitable conflicts between states. And it was here in Europe, through centuries of struggle — through war and Enlightenment, repression and revolution — that a particular set of ideals began to emerge: The belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose. The belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed, and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding. And those ideas eventually inspired a band of colonialists across an ocean, and they wrote them into the founding documents that still guide America today, including the simple truth that all men — and women — are created equal.

But those ideals have also been tested — here in Europe and around the world. Those ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power. This alternative vision argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign. Often, this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others, and that individual identity must be defined by “us” versus “them,” or that national greatness must flow not by what a people stand for, but by what they are against.

[89Hen]

The problem with this kind of thing is that it's not limited to idiots on the interwebs. Mrs89 loves her network national news. I warn her that it's just as bad as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Case in point this very weekend.

[Pwns]

First time I listened to it I knew the 8-second mark wasn't the start of a sentence.

[AZGrizFan]

I'm with kalmie on this one. What used to be relegated to weird corners of family parties or the obscure comment sections in online newspapers that no one read anyway, has just ballooned to disastrous proportions with the real breakthrough of social media. Ignorant people, on both sides of the aisle, are now able to hear the echo chamber they want of other similar ignorant people and like feedback through an amplifier, it just gets louder and louder. And the fact that even the monumentally stupid can find other people who agree with them just makes it even worse as it just reinforces whatever crazy notion they had. Trump is just an outcome of this quagmire, and heck, I'd even argue that the caricature that Obama became late in his term and now is an outcome as well. No idea where we're heading with all of this, but it sure does feel like the nose is pointing down and we're gaining speed.

My wife and I were talking about this exact thing last night. Social media (or the internet in general) has basically created a "glitch" in the human psyche, in that we have the ability to be inundated with bad, false, misleading or dangerous info on an almost constant basis, with very little capability to determine which is real, which is true vs the designed misinformation campaigns.

It's like a global "mental illness", and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle....

[AZGrizFan]

The problem with this kind of thing is that it's not limited to idiots on the interwebs. Mrs89 loves her network national news. I warn her that it's just as bad as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Case in point this very weekend.

precisely. And it happens on EVERY channel. Almost all day long.

[GannonFan]

I'm with kalmie on this one. What used to be relegated to weird corners of family parties or the obscure comment sections in online newspapers that no one read anyway, has just ballooned to disastrous proportions with the real breakthrough of social media. Ignorant people, on both sides of the aisle, are now able to hear the echo chamber they want of other similar ignorant people and like feedback through an amplifier, it just gets louder and louder. And the fact that even the monumentally stupid can find other people who agree with them just makes it even worse as it just reinforces whatever crazy notion they had. Trump is just an outcome of this quagmire, and heck, I'd even argue that the caricature that Obama became late in his term and now is an outcome as well. No idea where we're heading with all of this, but it sure does feel like the nose is pointing down and we're gaining speed.

My wife and I were talking about this exact thing last night. Social media (or the internet in general) has basically created a "glitch" in the human psyche, in that we have the ability to be inundated with bad, false, misleading or dangerous info on an almost constant basis, with very little capability to determine which is real, which is true vs the designed misinformation campaigns.

It's like a global "mental illness", and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle....

The book "Enders Game" talked about the same phenomenon (with the brother still on Earth, not Ender actually). If you can dominate social media you wield a great deal of power, and not necessarily for the good.

[kalm]

The problem with this kind of thing is that it's not limited to idiots on the interwebs. Mrs89 loves her network national news. I warn her that it's just as bad as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Case in point this very weekend.

Of course it’s not, nor is it one side or the other. But it happens more easily on social media with an obvious lack of vetting and misplaced trust in friends and sources vs traditional media.

Traditional media at least has legal departments, ombudsman, and editors that (mostly) shut that shit down. That’s what makes Chuck Todd’s example all that more egregious.

What disappoints me is the how many educated and successful people like my friend are so easily duped.

[GannonFan]

The problem with this kind of thing is that it's not limited to idiots on the interwebs. Mrs89 loves her network national news. I warn her that it's just as bad as CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Case in point this very weekend.

Of course it’s not, nor is it one side or the other. But it happens more easily on social media with an obvious lack of vetting and misplaced trust in friends and sources vs traditional media.

Traditional media at least has legal departments, ombudsman, and editors that (mostly) shut that shit down. That’s what makes Chuck Todd’s example all that more egregious.

What disappoints me is the how many educated and successful people like my friend are so easily duped.

Traditional media plays a part in this as well. As they chase the dollars to stay in business, they've gotten to be more and more entertainment as well - they preach to whatever choir they've decided to preach to. And too many journalists now try to be the story, or at least in the story, rather than reporting on it. While that pumps up their own social media cred it also degrades their creds as objective. It's harder to find an objective traditional news source anymore than it is finding the alternative, by far.

[89Hen]

Traditional media at least has legal departments, ombudsman, and editors that (mostly) shut that shit down. That’s what makes Chuck Todd’s example all that more egregious.

What disappoints me is the how many educated and successful people like my friend are so easily duped.

That's what happens when you only watch one news source.

[kalm]

Traditional media at least has legal departments, ombudsman, and editors that (mostly) shut that shit down. That’s what makes Chuck Todd’s example all that more egregious.

What disappoints me is the how many educated and successful people like my friend are so easily duped.

That's what happens when you only watch one news source.

Yep.

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

I'm with kalmie on this one. What used to be relegated to weird corners of family parties or the obscure comment sections in online newspapers that no one read anyway, has just ballooned to disastrous proportions with the real breakthrough of social media. Ignorant people, on both sides of the aisle, are now able to hear the echo chamber they want of other similar ignorant people and like feedback through an amplifier, it just gets louder and louder. And the fact that even the monumentally stupid can find other people who agree with them just makes it even worse as it just reinforces whatever crazy notion they had. Trump is just an outcome of this quagmire, and heck, I'd even argue that the caricature that Obama became late in his term and now is an outcome as well. No idea where we're heading with all of this, but it sure does feel like the nose is pointing down and we're gaining speed.

As a general rule I only have people I disagree with on Facebook as friends (Kalm, Titleless etc) . Same here I won't echo chamber myself.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[Winterborn]

I'm with kalmie on this one. What used to be relegated to weird corners of family parties or the obscure comment sections in online newspapers that no one read anyway, has just ballooned to disastrous proportions with the real breakthrough of social media. Ignorant people, on both sides of the aisle, are now able to hear the echo chamber they want of other similar ignorant people and like feedback through an amplifier, it just gets louder and louder. And the fact that even the monumentally stupid can find other people who agree with them just makes it even worse as it just reinforces whatever crazy notion they had. Trump is just an outcome of this quagmire, and heck, I'd even argue that the caricature that Obama became late in his term and now is an outcome as well. No idea where we're heading with all of this, but it sure does feel like the nose is pointing down and we're gaining speed.

My wife and I were talking about this exact thing last night. Social media (or the internet in general) has basically created a "glitch" in the human psyche, in that we have the ability to be inundated with bad, false, misleading or dangerous info on an almost constant basis, with very little capability to determine which is real, which is true vs the designed misinformation campaigns.

It's like a global "mental illness", and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle....

That is because it was done (or exploited) deliberately.

The underlying code and how they (Social Media platforms) operate is based on reinforcing and exploiting certain human behaviors and trends that we all do.

Take the video in question and Kalm's question about how his friend could "fall" for it. Studies have shown that we automatically trust something a friend tells us a bit more than a stranger. After all they are our "friends" and we have unconsciously assigned them a different hierarchy in our decision making process. This process happens instinctively and is one of the founding reason why a key tenet of all social media platforms is sharing content of some sort. It is also why normally smart people fall for stupid memes or other ideas.

Human behaviors and what drives our decision making process has been a hobby of mine since High School. People are both baffling complex and extremely predictable in our decision making behaviors, something that the Social Media platforms know full well and is a foundation of their business. They use different reinforcement techniques to drive repeated behaviors and that translates into habits which drives predictability. And then they sell ads based on the predictability they helped create.

[89Hen]

Studies have shown that we automatically trust something a friend tells us a bit more than a stranger.

I have become MORE skeptical of what some friends post.

When I get something from my one brother, I'm pretty sure it's fake. He is off the right deep end.

[AZGrizFan]

Studies have shown that we automatically trust something a friend tells us a bit more than a stranger.

I have become MORE skeptical of what some friends post.

When I get something from my one brother, I'm pretty sure it's fake. He is off the right deep end.

Same! I see stuff posted by my friends on FB and my first comment is usually "uh, have you fact checked that? It's pretty certainly false...." That happens both left and right....Confirmation bias at its worst.

[kalm]

My wife and I were talking about this exact thing last night. Social media (or the internet in general) has basically created a "glitch" in the human psyche, in that we have the ability to be inundated with bad, false, misleading or dangerous info on an almost constant basis, with very little capability to determine which is real, which is true vs the designed misinformation campaigns.

It's like a global "mental illness", and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle....

That is because it was done (or exploited) deliberately.

The underlying code and how they (Social Media platforms) operate is based on reinforcing and exploiting certain human behaviors and trends that we all do.

Take the video in question and Kalm's question about how his friend could "fall" for it. Studies have shown that we automatically trust something a friend tells us a bit more than a stranger. After all they are our "friends" and we have unconsciously assigned them a different hierarchy in our decision making process. This process happens instinctively and is one of the founding reason why a key tenet of all social media platforms is sharing content of some sort. It is also why normally smart people fall for stupid memes or other ideas.

Human behaviors and what drives our decision making process has been a hobby of mine since High School. People are both baffling complex and extremely predictable in our decision making behaviors, something that the Social Media platforms know full well and is a foundation of their business. They use different reinforcement techniques to drive repeated behaviors and that translates into habits which drives predictability. And then they sell ads based on the predictability they helped create.

Well look at the big brain on WB!

Truly great description, man.

Now tie in the concept that it has already turned us into a giant AI/cyborg being with trillions of worker bees, constantly feeding it information.

Come to think of it...I’m glad we’re not friends or else you’d further corrupt me....

[Winterborn]

I have become MORE skeptical of what some friends post.

When I get something from my one brother, I'm pretty sure it's fake. He is off the right deep end.

Same! I see stuff posted by my friends on FB and my first comment is usually "uh, have you fact checked that? It's pretty certainly false...." That happens both left and right....Confirmation bias at its worst.

But were you both always that way?

And my point was in general, not all people exhibit the same patterns all the time.

[Winterborn]

Well look at the big brain on WB!

Truly great description, man.

Now tie in the concept that it has already turned us into a giant AI/cyborg being with trillions of worker bees, constantly feeding it information.

Come to think of it...I’m glad we’re not friends or else you’d further corrupt me....

We are hosed.

Time to go fishing off the grid and build a cabin.


I actually don't believe a true AI is possible in the strictest sense of one passing the Turing Test. Some programs have "passed" it but not because they were capable of doing so independently but due to some really detailed programing. And yes I am well aware I am splitting hairs here on that point.

[89Hen]

Same! I see stuff posted by my friends on FB and my first comment is usually "uh, have you fact checked that? It's pretty certainly false...." That happens both left and right....Confirmation bias at its worst.

But were you both always that way?

And my point was in general, not all people exhibit the same patterns all the time.

I get what you're saying. A personal referral is always better than a cold call. But folks that consistently give you shitty advice I would hope would be met with more skepticism. If I have a trusted source I am more likely to believe what they've sent. Like Gil used to be here.

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

Studies have shown that we automatically trust something a friend tells us a bit more than a stranger.

I have become MORE skeptical of what some friends post.

When I get something from my one brother, I'm pretty sure it's fake. He is off the right deep end.

Tell him to send me a request

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[Winterborn]

But were you both always that way?

And my point was in general, not all people exhibit the same patterns all the time.

I get what you're saying. A personal referral is always better than a cold call. But folks that consistently give you shitty advice I would hope would be met with more skepticism. If I have a trusted source I am more likely to believe what they've sent. Like Gil used to be here.

I fully agree and follow the same practice.

But most people don't bother to double check things they hear/read, they blindly accept what they receive as input. Combine that with peoples short memories and you get the situation were misinformation is spread. Also take into account the fact that how many people know how/where to find unbiased information or take the time to research a particular bit of information to find out the truth? People tend to be lazy or prioritize other tasks, plus most of us have many things vying for our time and we can't fact check every bit of information that we are presented with. Which is why critical thinking is so huge, as it allows a person to bypass the things that are obviously false and concentrate only on the most important items or areas where one doesn't know as much.

People on this board already are outside of some of the normal patterns, mainly due to the amount of debating that goes on at any given time where any point/fact can and will be discussed.