Are you pretty fed up with fake news on social media? You should be. Because a) there’s too much of it, b) it’s annoying, and c) it makes an already quite effed up world even more effed up.
So…. how to deal? Well, you can start by reading the following handy-dandy guide to both getting pretty fed up with fake news on social media and dealing with it at the same time!
Step 1: Don’t Get Your News From Social Media in the First Place.
According to Pew Research Center’s analysis of the news use across social media platforms, in 2020, about half of American adults get news on social media at least sometimes, while in 2018, only one-fifth of them say they often get news via social media.
Fake news, disinformation and misinformation in social media: a review – PMC (nih.gov)
Whether the above statistics are totally true or not – social media is not a good source for news. Oh yeah, back in the pre-Elon Musk era, you could get news from Twitter. It was a decent, if not by any means impeccable, place to get news. But Twitter has died and gone to the graveyard and now there is something called ‘X’, which happens to stand for complete and utter bullshit, bought and run by a bullshit artist known for spreading fake news.
Facebook is also not a source for news. Everyone on it (except for you, of course), is an idiot. Facebook may or may not want to think it is a source for news, but it absolutely is not. It is a source for weird fake news shit that idiots share for no good reason other than that they are idiots.
TikTok is not a source for news. There are many people on TikTok who are not idiots. But almost none of them are journalists or other credible sources of actual news. News is not what TikTok is for. TikTok is for short videos. Short videos are not news.
Instagram is not a source for news. Instagram is a way for celebrities to get themselves into trouble. Different thing entirely.
Get your news from the mainstream (aka lamestream) media. Like actual journalists. Employed by people who pay actual journalists.
Like old-fashioned newspapers who are now online but they used to be newspapers. Like the Scranton Times-Tribune. The Jacksonville Illinois Journal Courier. The Los Angeles Times. And national outlets for real journalism. Like ABC, NBC, CBS. And definitely not Microsoft Start, MSN, or some other aggregator of clickbait.
Clickbait is not news. Clickbait is exciting, unrealistic, and fake. Real news is boring even as it is frequently horrifying. If the news you are consuming is not at least somewhat boring while being horrifying, it is not real news.
Step 2: If It’s Spreading Like Wildfire on Social Media – Don’t Trust It!
Falsehoods are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than the truth, researchers found. And false news reached 1,500 people about six times faster than the truth.
Study: False news spreads faster than the truth | MIT Sloan
Remember the part above about real news being boring? Boring stuff does not spread like wildfire. Fake news does.
If everybody and their brother-in-law is sharing something on social media, don’t share it! God only knows everyone else is and you, as a discerning individual, have already realized that most people are both stupid and gullible (especially your parents, how did that happen?), so don’t jump on the stupidity bandwagon and share it yourself.
Instead, sit back (so as to you give your hunched over phone-obsessed body a break) and say to yourself – “I’ll bet that’s fake news. I’ll just ignore it for now and if there is some truth to it, USA Today or Snopes or whoever will comment on it later.”
Later. Because most news, unless it is local (remember your trustworthy local sources of news) is NOT URGENT. Just because news is new does not make it urgent. As I write this, there are absolutely horrible things happening in the Middle East, as we Westerners call it. If you live in or near the Gaza Strip, then the news is urgent. If you don’t – no matter how gut-wrenching the events – it is not urgent. You can wait for the facts to be checked.
You are not obligated by man or nature to be tremendously upset by something right this second unless it involves fire and your bodily personage.
Emotions like to be speedy. It’s their raison d’etre. So they want to jump in there and share themselves on social media. But that’s how fake news effs up the world. Don’t fall for this trap.
Bonus Tip: When you see some outrageous piece of fake news spreading through your networks, say out loud to your phone: “Oh for God’s sake, SHUT UP! Shut up you stupid people, shut up!” Not only will it make you feel better (slightly), it will reinforce to your brain that you are a clear-thinking non-fake-news-falling-for person of superior moral and intellectual character. Yay you!
Step 3: If It’s Clearly Biased – Don’t Trust It!
You have biases. I have biases. Everyone in Arizona has biases. Sometimes your biases are correct. My personal biases have an astonishingly good record of accuracy. And yet – I can still be wrong and sometimes am! This is clearly the result of a disturbance in the Force, and yet there you go.
When you see something on social media that seems designed to reinforce someone’s biases, yours or those jokers you have come to hate – don’t trust it.
Instead, check for evidence. If there is a trend on TikTok that posits that apple cider vinegar has been proven to cure all forms of cancer, my biases say no fucking way. There is nothing on earth that cures everything no matter how much people wish there was.
And yet, there is evidence that apple cider vinegar (any kind of vinegar, really) can be helpful in controlling blood sugar. I found this out by checking non-social-media forms of evidence.
Check the sources! This is what journalists are taught to do and you should too.
If it’s too much trouble to check the sources, then put it in a special container in your mind that says ‘that could easily be fake news’ and then forget about it. You’re going to need to eat later and there is the pressing question of what your dinner should consist of. Contemplate that instead of something that seemingly exists only to confirm your biases or make you infuriated that other people’s biases are the opposite of yours.
Bonus Tip: Just because something represents wish fulfillment does not make it news. Beer, alas, has not been proven to cure all forms of cancer (sad face emoji). And despite your heartfelt desires, it is not at all certain that the political figures you hate are going to be locked up and spend the rest of your lives in prison.
Step 4: If It Involves a ‘Secret’ Conspiracy – DON’T TRUST IT!
It’s not that there aren’t conspiracies. It could be argued that the entire world consists of a series of interlocking benign and not-so-benign conspiracies. Humans are social animals. They cooperate and conspire.
But not that secretly. If the conspiracy involves a superhuman coordination of secrecy to hide the fact that the earth is actually flat – it’s fake news. If the conspiracy involves 7 billionaires trying to figure out how to build a floating underwater city so they can escape the havoc they have created – well it’s not that hard to find 7 really weird billionaires.
But they’ll inevitably tell people about it, and it will come out, and the upshot will prove that not only can billionaires be unconscionably cold-hearted, but they are also not as competent as they think they are.
The people who run the world are not all-powerful and all-knowing. They are, instead, both too powerful and not nearly as smart as they think they are.
YouTube and TikTok use algorithms that can send anyone who is susceptible to their wiles down a rabbit hole of weirder and weirder conspiracies. Don’t fall prey to this kind of thing. WALK THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE ALGORITHM.
There is more than enough evil to go around without succumbing to fake news and fake theories. Also – if all your friends have to have the same weird theories that alienate them from the rest of humanity – that’s not a good sign. Make some normal friends.
I know – I’m preaching to the choir here – you are absolutely normal and a spectacular friend. But doesn’t it make you feel good to hear someone else tell the conspiracy spreaders (ahem, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) to stop that shit!
Step 5: Remember That People are Stupid
There is ample evidence for this assertion and you are surrounded by it in your daily life. Simple elements of daily life such as your own inability to remember where you put your glasses, the idiotic instructions of your boss, your beloved partner’s unwillingness to load the dishwasher correctly, and your neighbor’s apparent disregard for getting their dog to stop that incessant barking at 2 a.m. prove that apparent stupidity abounds.
And yet – people find this simple element of humanity difficult to remember when it counts. Seemingly intelligent people are mesmerized by accomplishments such as space travel, democracy, their own wealth, and scientific advances in astronomy and so on, and fail to remember that people only seem smart in their accomplishments because they are so obviously stupid.
What this means to you when it comes to fake news and social media is that a healthy skepticism, willingness to think, and not swallowing whole what anyone says is an essential part of not getting caught up in stuff that is just not true.
People are particularly stupid when it comes to statistics. Statistics are attractive and wonderful because they appear to present a load of information in an easily digestible form. But no one understands them.
When I was researching this, I came across a statistic that posited that 70% of people can’t distinguish between false and real news. That was an eye-catching statistic, so I went to the source. The source did not say anything of the kind. The source indicated that one thing was 70% more likely to occur than another thing. 70% more likely is not 70% of people.
If you are 70% more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke (fake statistic by the way, I made it up), it does not mean that 70% of people who smoke get lung cancer. What it means is that if 7% of people who don’t smoke get lung cancer, then around 12% of people who smoke get lung cancer (7% times 1.7=11.9%). Different thing.
The source who misinterpreted the statistic about people distinguishing between real and false news was highly educated and, for all I know, is widely cited. But that doesn’t make it correct.
What this means is that the experts that people you violently disagree with rely on are stupid. And so the experts you rely on.
Scientists are just scientists. The CDC is just the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and apparently not that good at any of the things represented by its title. The World Health Organization is just a bunch of people doing the best they can while hampered by the universal human affliction of stupidity.
You don’t know everything either. Neither do I. So may your political opinions and decisions be tempered by humility and a willingness to change and even (gasp!!) compromise.
The other side of the political spectrum from you may be stupider than yours – but your side is not that smart either. Your side can spread fake news and be prone to wish fulfillment fantasies too.
Your side can also get unreasonably outraged and, while outrage is enormously entertaining, it is not necessarily real news.
Step 6: Realize That an Event or Topic That Generates Strong Emotion and Polarization is Going to Spur a Lot of Fake News
Elections. COVID-19. Police brutality. Crime. Climate change. And – for reasons that completely elude me – the existence of transgender people.
Things that scare people spur fake news. A lot of things scare people these days. Probably a lot of things have always scared people.
Back in the 1950s, Americans were scared of communism. There was a lot of fake news about communists back then.
If news on social media seems designed to make you more scared, then maybe take it with a grain of salt and – this is important – don’t share it!
Fear is a legitimate emotion. There are plenty of real reasons to be frightened. Which is why it is important to curate your sources of fear and consider them with measured regard.
Ha ha! Just kidding. You’re not going to do that because you’re human. But still, after you have freaked out, dial it back, be disturbed, and get pretty fed up with the underlying problem rather than spreading rumors and lies.
Look for the practical solutions, not just the emotional outlet of trying to get everyone else to freak out too.
Step 7: Realize that Russia and China (and Iran and North Korea) Are Waging Information Warfare Against You Via Fake News
The Russians and the Chinese are not idiots. Okay, they’re people, so they’re stupid, but they are not idiots.
What makes them not idiots is their awareness that Americans and Europeans are not only stupid but heavy users of social media. These state actors take advantage of something they do not believe in or approve of – which is the Western ideal of ‘free speech’.
Russia and China (and other nations as well) engage in or attempt to engage in extremely tight control of information in their own countries. They produce their own fake news for the consumption of the people within their lands.
Not that hard then, is it, to start producing fake news for the consumption of people in other lands. The Russians worked hard to produce fake news in support of Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016. They are working hard to produce fake news to undermine support of Ukraine.
The Chinese government wants the entire globe to believe that the Chinese government is great while the Western countries are decaying moral cesspits of chaos and dysfunction. Since the chaos and dysfunction elements are pretty darn plausible, they are doing their best to stir up more chaos and dysfunction via inflammatory postings on social media.
Beware.
Look out for social media ‘news’ that looks like it might be serving foreign governments or amplifying the most divisive aspects of your society. Look out for bots and trolls and pay attention to the underlying credibility of what you’re seeing.
SUPER-BONUS TIP: If Donald Trump and His Ilk Say It’s ‘Fake News’, It Isn’t.
Nuff said.
And may fake news never darken your feed again.
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Disinformation even worse than it used to be. And that’s really saying something. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/disinformation-unprecedented-threat-2024-election-rcna134290