[superfad]

> Digital misinformation has become so pervasive in online social media that it has been listed by the WEF as one of the main threats to human society.

It might be a good time to bring back critical thinking to the education curriculum. I see that as the only real solution.

It would be interesting to know how the spread of this misinformation differs from other types of regular news.

[atmosx]

> It would be interesting to know how the spread of this misinformation differs from other types of regular news.

That is the root of the problem: It does NOT[1]. Lying[2] is the core business of most respected media outlets.

[1] The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer: https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-w...

[2] A lie doesn't have to preposterous, e.g. "the Pope is routing for Trump!". Distorting reality, not revealing facts, etc. are all lies in the sense that the author in order to drive a point, actively distorts/hides/ignores facts. We're not talking regular people, we're talking professional journalists who are taught how to cover and approach a subject to minimise distortion effects.

[pg314]

> That is the root of the problem: It does NOT[1].

Yes it does. There is a difference between saying there is an unverified report alleging kompromat on Trump and saying the pope supported Trump. The latter is categorically false, the former is simply a fact. Any critical reader can understand, just by reading the article, that the former are allegations which have not been verified. No such thing is possible with the latter without referring to other sources. Equating both is just muddling the discussion.

> Lying[2] is the core business of most respected media outlets.

You provide no justification for this bold statement. Just some hand-waving about distorting reality and hiding facts.

By trying to spread this misinformation you are - possibly unwittingly - playing into the hand of those who would prefer the free, independent press to disappear.

[atmosx]

> Any critical reader can understand, just by reading the article, that the former are allegations which have not been verified.

So let me get this straight: The critical reader should understand that the Washington Post, the US gov, the Economist, Bill Maher[1] (political satirist on HBO) and MANY others, have taken an allegation and build-up an entire case as if it were true BUT somehow when fake news are pro-Trump the critical reader's IQ falls bellow temperature level and he doesn't understand that it's extremely unlikely that the Pope would actively routes towards one candidate over another, for whatever reason? I'm sorry, I'm having hard making sense.

> You provide no justification for this bold statement. Just some hand-waving about distorting reality and hiding facts. By trying to spread this misinformation you are - possibly unwittingly - playing into the hand of those who would prefer the free, independent press to disappear.

Did you read the linked article? Here's the summary:

THERE IS A real danger here that this maneuver could harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him. If any of the significant claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA) are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing.

Respect for free media, yes, absolute respect. Respect for propaganda or fake news from either side? No.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmIS1y0cUv0

[pg314]

Bill Maher is not news. If you treat him as such and lump him in with the WaPo or The Economist, I don't think we can have a constructive discussion.

The articles about the Trump dossier in the WaPo, NYT, The Economist, CNN all came with explicit disclaimers that the contents from the Trump dossier came from unverified sources, and should be treated as such. I don't know how else they could have presented it. If that falls in the same category for you as an article stating unequivocally that the pope has endorsed Trump, again, I don't think we can have a constructive discussion.

I agree that some of the Democrats treating the dossier as proven facts is dumb and will probably backfire.

[loafa]

> It might be a good time to bring back critical thinking to the education curriculum. I see that as the only real solution

Contrary to the popular view, I don't think people in general lack critical thinking skills. When confronted with something that they don't want to believe, even the dullest and least educated among us are great at finding every single flaw in the argument. It's only when they're confronted with something that they want to believe that these skills fall apart.

What people are bad at is not critical thinking skills, but critical thinking discipline. It takes real discipline to apply the same standards to everything whether you want to believe it or not, and I don't know many people who are up to it. Unfortunately like most virtues it's not something easily taught.

[rustynails]

It appears to be deeper than that. I'll try to illustrate using a modern example.

In Australia, the media (and the overwhelming majority of feminists) refuse to acknowledge that Donestic Violence has female perpetrators or male victims. Mission Australia (a large charity organisation) even ran a smear campaign saying that men refuse to acknowlege it happens (a sleight of hand to redirect focus back on males). Some feminists even argued that domestic (of the home) violence only refers to female victims (I found that gem on ANC news). It even got worse when channel 9 and 1800 respect (a government department) took an aggressive gender based campaign that explicitly put the blame on young boys. "It's a boy thing" was one of the charming lines in the ads that saturated print time TV in 2016. Not one single feminist (not one that I could find) raised a single objection against any of this, despite it being a fundamental breach of human rights.

In case you are wondering, the Australian Bureau of Statistics identified that 1 in 3 victims of domestic violence in New South Wales (our largest state) was male. These statistics are totally ignored by government, the media and feminism.

You will see similar trends worldwide. For example, the majority of feminists in the U.K. Refuse to acknowledge many women were voting well before many men were and that women were running successful businesses long before they supposedly were according to the modern media (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9933592/Wom...).

This doesn't come down to critical discipline, it comes down to blatant pathological lying and bullying on a mass scale. Places like The Verge (among many media outlets) have embraced and driven this prejudice.

The media is extremely manipulative. The bullying of little boys today by most media outlets and many businesses blows my mind. I can't imagine any period in the last 100 years has been so committed to such extreme sexism. Even educational material like Horrible Histories has joined in on the gendered attacks.

I'm not sure what to put this down to. I usually use terms like feminism and political correctness. However, it's also the apathy of most decent people. It's a collective social issue, not just of individuals. People desperately need to take a stand against feminism and political correctness.

This goes beyond critical discipline. This is a collective social disease.

[bergoid]

> I'm not sure what to put this down to. I usually use terms like feminism and political correctness.

This is sometimes called "cultural marxism". It is in my opinion the dominant ideology that permeates our thinking, our language and our behavior nowadays. That's why it is so hard to put our finger on it. We are like a group of goldfish discussing the concept of "water". Dr. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto does a great job at explaining how emancipation movements that were born with the best of intentions can transition gradually into tyranny. Though he uses just the word "marxism".

http://www.c2cjournal.ca/2016/12/were-teaching-university-st...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04wyGK6k6HE

Of course there's also the fable "Animal Farm" by George Orwell which masterfully describes the cycle of emancipation from tyranny to a new form of tyranny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm

[bruceb]

> I can't imagine any period in the last 100 years has been

>so committed to such extreme sexism.

I guess the fact women couldn't vote in a number of western countries in the early and mid part of last century or there were almost no women in charge corporations or govt power until the last 30 years (with a very few exceptions) doesn't qualify as extreme sexism?

One can decry the overreach and excesses of some "social justice warriors" without going red pill extremist. Do some women commit domestic violence? of course. But how many men have killed women vs women who have killed men? Save the extremism for some outraged subreddit.

[soundwave106]

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted here. I found the post you are replying to as way too shrill myself.

The truth is, I've seen several articles in the past concerning female domestic violence against men. Such as here: http://time.com/2921491/hope-solo-women-violence/ and here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-... So these articles do exist out there.

Generally speaking, I personally think there's a fairly easy biological explanation for the emotive difference in reporting and society: men are biologically stronger than women, and thus will have a greater tendency to injure / harm when they engage in domestic violence. This is noted in the Time article as well as several references in the Wikipedia article on domestic violence against men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_against_men#...).

This is not to say that domestic violence against men should be ignored (on the contrary, it shows that there is a blind spot, contributed by certain social stereotypes driven by the biological fact that in general, men are stronger than women). But in my view, turning this into a tired "social justice warrior vs. men's right's activists" Internet argument is a great way to get this issue ignored. When this happens, activists tend to entrench in their circles and shout at each other, and the rest of the population ignores them and continues onward with their standard assumptions.

[empressplay]

The point here is _everyone_ has an agenda.

_Everyone_.

There are "no clean hands".

_Never_ forget it. Learn to live around it.

[baq]

the point is that if it's only you that learns to live around it, you still lose.

[dhimes]

This is an important point- not sure why you're getting downvoted.

I'll rephrase: If you're in a game and you're the only one playing by the rules, you're going to lose.

[SomeStupidPoint]

My favorite flavor of this was all the extremely sexist posters next to posters decrying sexism at the Women's March on Saturday.

[oculusthrift]

i disagree. when confronted with something they don't want to believe their arguments are usually laughable at best. I don't see the critical thinking used when saying global warming is fake because it's cold outside in january and that obama is a muslim.

[dhimes]

His point isn't contrary to yours, though. His point is that they have the skills to think critically when they want to, such as when their basic ideas are being challenged, but they don't have the discipline to do it then.

I hadn't thought of this before. Yes, teach critical thinking in schools. But also teach the necessity of thinking critically about everything.

Here's a personal example: I used to teach physics at a community college, and would on occasion have some very young (15, 16 yo) homeschooled kids in the classes. These kids were very bright of course (and also very disciplined about their work, which accounted for a lot of their success). But they were also very religious.

Now mind you, although they were smart they were still children. Of course, metaphysical discussions would arise when discussing science and the origins of the universe (or biological things and what-not).

My instructions/advice to the class on these issues was always: (1) You will be tested on knowing the theory, you are not required to believe it; and (2) what I hope that you take away from the class is being able to tell the difference between scientific evidence and faith. We all take some things on faith- just know when that is, in fact, what you are doing.

I think this message (perhaps better articulated) needs to be spread far and wide today.

[oculusthrift]

I'm saying I don't see any clear indication that they have the skills, whether or not they apply them.