By representing itself both as an open platform and as a company with progressive values, Twitter has put itself into an awkward in-between spot and is bound to create such controversies.
We live in a world where a substantial number of people believe the earth is flat, that 5G cellular is a mind control scheme, that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 was created by a political party, that the concept of climate change is manufactured, or that major national crises are actually just actors being paid to further a political narrative.
Most of these ideas aren't new, but in decades past you might have heard about them from a conspiracy-therorist neighbor, a low profile website, or an alternative magazine with little reputation of its own.
Now, these ideas are spread on the exact same platforms as objectively truthful / scientifically sound media. Your Youtube conspiracy theory channel is right next to the BBC's videos. Your viral Facebook post could be from the New York Times, or it might be from a propaganda organization - or worse, an account that looks like a normal person but which was specifically created to spread misinformation that seems plausibly truthful.
Credibility is distributed and anyone can publish to a huge audience, which is wonderful sometimes, and othertimes deeply problematic, because the viewer often doesn't know enough to distinguish fact from fiction and can't trust the publisher at face value anymore.
Its uncharted territory. The cost to distribute is zero, and ideas spread far and wide - but that means that there are equally as many incredible sources on any given topic as credible ones, and telling the difference is hard, and sometimes not knowing the difference is dangerous. Dunning-Kruger writ large.
So you don't think mainstream media lies too, all the time, like politicians? RussiaGate is still unproven and by all definitions, a conspiracy. What makes them any more allowed to shill but individuals cannot?
Doing that with the many thousands of Youtube channels or many millions of Facebook/Twitter accounts broadcasting alleged facts is difficult, if not impossible, especially when the cost of obtaining a new account is essentially zero.
I also think that poor general education has also been exposed. People lack general science education and critical thinking skills. Just look at all the 'gotcha' posts of people giving scientists a hard time for changing their positions as new information is learned, when that is exactly what a scientist is supposed to do.
The other part drives these conspiracy theories is not just that they share a platform with legitimate sources, but also the algorithms. Someone clicks on a single story that is borderline conspiracy out of curiosity, and now they are served them at every turn. It's easy for a person to get lost and think that what they are being pushed is the entire world.
By the way, I think you're being downvoted because of this statement:
We live in a world where a substantial number of people believe the earth is flat, that 5G cellular is a mind control scheme, that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 was created by a political party, that the concept of climate change is manufactured, or that major national crises are actually just actors being paid to further a political narrative.
I've noticed there is a contingent on HN that do believe in some or all of these things.
Where are the studies that actually show it is a substantial number? Where's the peer-reviewed replication of those studies? How do those studies account for the "Lizardman constant" (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...)?
Maybe I'm unique, but I'd guess many of the downvoters have similar complaints.
The question is, if it's hard to figure out who you can trust, then who can you trust to decide what's fact and what's fiction?
I think trusting any one person or organization to decide is dangerous. Everyone has biases, including the people making decisions at Twitter.
I'd prefer to see the arguments for both sides clearly laid out - "Here are the arguments for and against". Ideally anyone would be able to contribute to either side. Maybe giving each argument its own HN-style discussion.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fox-news-b...
> Most of these ideas aren't new, but in decades past you might have heard about them from a conspiracy-therorist neighbor, a low profile website, or an alternative magazine with little reputation of its own.
> Now, these ideas are spread on the exact same platforms as objectively truthful / scientifically sound media. Your Youtube conspiracy theory channel is right next to the BBC's videos. Your viral Facebook post could be from the New York Times, or it might be from a propaganda organization - or worse, an account that looks like a normal person but which was specifically created to spread misinformation that seems plausibly truthful.
My intuition tells me that knowledge of conspiracy theories is now mostly (in terms of awareness) spread through mainstream media articles asserting that "conspiracy theorists believe <x>". Now I don't spend all that much time in that corner of the internet, but I spend enough time in /r/conspiracy that I have a half decent feel for what the general consensus is on the topics covered in the media, and the way the media describes the "beliefs" of "conspiracy theorists" is incredibly untrue, at least as far as /r/conspiracy goes.
Think about it: do you think all the reporters that write on such topics, and in turn all the people in forums like Reddit and HN, actually know what they're talking about? Or might it be more likely that heuristics in their subconscious mind are feeding information up to the subconscious, that was not once fact-checked?
Pay attention when reading the news or forum comments, observe for yourself how many people speak as if they know things that are literally unknowable, such as events in the future, or the contents of another person's mind. Go through each comment in this very thread and see how many you can count.
There is something very interesting going on, at scale.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-half-americ...
How many people does it take to become 'substantial'?
Sure, but many things being discussed are beyond biases at this point. POTUS tweets and says completely false things every single day. This isn't downplaying things he disagrees with or spinning, it's flat out lying and/or denying they even exist.
There was a long thread here on HN about HCQ, and some were asking for proof that HCQ does not work. No, that is completely the opposite of how science, and drug research in particularly, works. Drugs are considered non-working until proven otherwise and never the other way around.
I'd prefer to see the arguments for both sides clearly laid out - "Here are the arguments for and against". Ideally anyone would be able to contribute to either side. Maybe giving each argument its own HN-style discussion.
I understand what you're saying, but I shouldn't have to prove 1+1=2 every time I want to have a discussion. Let's take vaccines for example. They have been proven safe and effective many times over. They do not cause autism. In this case, what is the other side of the argument? On my side it's tons of peer reviewed research and on the other it's a few quacks with falsified/misinterpreted/unreplicable/bad science. What is there to actually argue? This is where I normally get frustrated because there are so many topics that can be vigorously argued in good faith, but if we can't agree to some basic 'this is how the scientific method works' then what's the point.
When you can have people gather clips of text/video to show a corporate media entity contradicting itself, or hiding relevant facts when reporting on a situation, etc. in real-time, it becomes it becomes clear that it is not merely a bias, but in many cases an agenda which drives them (an agenda which may be political, or may merely be the pursuit of ratings and scarce advertising dollars).
The most compelling argument I heard from detractors is that a) Vaccines have been tested/developed on people in Africa who were not told of the dangers of experimental treatments
b)Some vaccines contain trace amounts of metals like mercury.
Both a and b are True. In what way is the person that holds such views unscientific.
When I was child, I was literally vaccinated with a re-used needle. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
I don't understand why you can act like vaccines have never hurt anyone ever, and claim it as the scientific view. To me this seems equally as absurd.
Then don't do that. People shouldn't treat Twitter as the highest source if truth, but I don't think anyone does.
If you didn't read my link, I suggest you do. Plenty of polls are designed in a way that almost encourage terribly inaccurate results.
Perhaps these aren't, but I'm not going to be convinced they're accurate by just a cursory glance at results.
I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong, either - just being skeptical until I see a really strong case.
Running medical trials on unsuspecting people is wrong whether it's a new drug or vaccine. It also has little to do with the well proven safety vaccines.
> b)Some vaccines contain trace amounts of metals like mercury.
Ah, the classic anti-vax 'toxins' argument. I said that vaccines have been proven safe time and again (which they have). I never said they don't have trace amounts of stuff often found in much larger amounts all around us in the environment [1].
> When I was child, I was literally vaccinated with a re-used needle. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
There was a time in not so long ago medical history that things like needles were reused. It wasn't specific to vaccines.
> I don't understand why you can act like vaccines have never hurt anyone ever, and claim it as the scientific view
Talk about moving/making up goal posts. Nowhere did I claim that no one was ever hurt in the history of figuring out how vaccines work. What I claimed is that vaccines today have been proven safe over and over again. They also do not cause autism.
[1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about-vaccines/
As I suggested in my first post, though, not all studies are created equal.
This one could be accurate, but I'm not jumping straight to 98% certainty based on two articles. Survey design matters, and high confidence must be earned.
I shouldn't have said I take issue with the claim. It would have been more accurate to say I don't know that I trust the claim implicitly.
I'm not sure if this ever hasn't been an issue, but it kinda comes to the heart of fact-checking. I think treating the kinds of falsehoods that get spread online as just obvious conspiracy-theories by nutjobs puts your guard down for things that sound and feel right, but are wrong.