this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024

437 points (97.2% liked)

News

23601 readers

3579 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

437

Analysis: Misinformation has created an alternative world for some Americans (www.cnn.com)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave to c/news

128 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There’s a tendency in this heated political climate to simply reject people who are saying false things and to write off conspiracy theorists writ large.

But as the US approaches the third straight election in which misinformation — and the fight against it — is expected to play a role, it’s important to understand what’s driving people who don’t believe in US elections.

…

I talked to O’Sullivan about the documentary, in which he has some frank and disarming talks with people about what has shaken their belief in the US. But he paints an alarming picture about the rise of fringe movements in the country.

Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below:

WOLF: What were you trying to accomplish with this project?

O’SULLIVAN: So much of mainstream American politics now is being infected and affected by what is happening on what was once considered the real fringes — fringe platforms, fringe personalities.

And I think really what we want to do in this show is illustrate how these personalities may be pushing falsehoods, but they’re no longer fringe. This is all happening right now. And it is having a big effect on our democracy.

…

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Data does not actually support the idea that politics are shifting right:

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2021/december/america-more-liberal-than-50-years-ago-but-change-not-reflected-.html

[–] LengAwaits 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The term is named after the American policy analyst Joseph Overton, who proposed that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. ... The Overton window is an approach to identifying the ideas that define the spectrum of acceptability of governmental policies. It says politicians can act only within the acceptable range. Shifting the Overton window involves proponents of policies outside the window persuading the public to expand the window.

^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window^

Data does not actually support the idea that politics are shifting right:

The title of your article is literally:

America More Liberal than 50 Years Ago—But Change Not Reflected in Its Politics

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Okay but playing devil's advocate, that could just mean politics stayed the same as people moved left.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does that really jive with what you see in the world though?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I think what I've observed is that economic politics has moved right while social politics has moved left... While society in general has moved left completely... I think both parties fight over the social stuff so they can distract from the economic stuff because economically they are basically the same party, working together for the exploiter class. And for every small step to the social left, we have to concede 10 to the economic right.

[–] LengAwaits 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Granted, but, begging the question... does that mean rightward pressure has been exerted on the overton window such that people's attempts to move it leftward have been frustrated?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

If I'm understanding the Overton window correctly, it's the range of ideas that would be politically feasible without immediately getting voted out of office... So rightward pressure would mean society at large moving to the right. Since we know society at large has moved left, I think I'd have to argue that the window only works if we live somewhere that what society wants actually matters. Due to mapping and other shenanigans I don't think the window means anything today. In a direct democracy I think we'd see a very progressive society develop. We live in an oligarchy though, so all that matters is what the rich want, and they want us fighting each other over trans people and guns and abortion rather than fighting them over economics.