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by tzs 2082 days ago
> With internet, you have much higher chance of knowing stuff is misinformation, though.

No, with internet you have a much higher chance of being able to find out that a particular thing is misinformation if you put in the time and effort to research it.

But also because of internet you are exposed to a much higher percentage of false information than before, because internet lowered the cost of producing and disseminating false information much more than it lowered the cost of producing and disseminating true information.

And with social media, which is one of the biggest ways false information gets spread, taking up a large fraction of a lot of people's time outside of work they rarely find the time to research the information they get.

Even if you do take the time to try to research the latest false information, there is a decent chance you won't find anything because refuting a false claim takes longer than making a false claim. By the time the debunking is available, there is a good chance you've moved on to something else and are no longer interested. When the false information shows up again on your social media, it is no longer new to you and the chance you'll try again to vet it is much lower.