this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024

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How a small but vocal minority of social media users distort reality and sow division (www.pbs.org)

submitted 1 month ago by gedaliyah to c/videos

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Researchers at New York University have concluded that social media is not an accurate reflection of society, but more like a funhouse mirror distorted by a small but vocal minority of extreme outliers. It's a finding that has special resonance this election season. John Yang speaks with psychology professor Jay Van Bavel, one of the authors of the paper that reported the research, to learn more.

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[–] kitnaht 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I've been experiencing this on lemmy 100% They follow a playbook of sorts too. A couple of things I notice they all do:

Ignore any comparison to Republicans/Trump. Because doing so would point out how absolutely lop-sided the choice is.
Claim Genocide is the reason. Ignore all other reasons.
Call you Racist, Conservative, etc.
Claim that you insulted them in an attempt to become the victim.
Claim that during every presidential vote "America has been at stake if you don't vote for [X] candidate" - ignoring the very real attempts at overthrowing our government.

The community "leftymemes" also seems to have been made explicitly for spreading this kind of thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Are you me? Literally the same experience. I think it's bots programmed in a way that follows what you described.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I just went for the heavy use of blocking those types, and my experience on here has gotten way better. Otherwise, my user experience was just a fire hose of outrage and performative pearl clutching.

[–] Alteon 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just blocked the whole of lemmyml and lemmy.blahaj or whatever it is, and my experience has been 100% better.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Honestly .ml lives rent free in the head of so many people that I actually got a better experience by blocking every random who mentions how much they hate .ml in a conversation that has nothing to do with it.

I've gotten to the point that I think the US government has paid shills spamming Lemmy with those comments just to make sure socialism doesn't get discussed at all.

[–] Alteon 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My experience with ML Socialists has been nothing but hostile. Anytime I've had questions or tried to have a discussion with a socialist about socialism, the response has been nothing but pure acid from them. Change is slow, and we're slowly becoming more liberal as a people. They view socialized democracy as cowtowing to imperialism, and they seem to advocate for violent revolution to enact they're goals. I literally can't support that.

I would love for the US to become more socialized, for the workers to be more empowered, for people to live with better healthcare, less stress, and better safety nets...but as a social democrat, I'm the fucking enemy to them. As they described me, I'm imperialist scum.

I considered myself pretty far left.....but those people? They fucking scare me...

... But if it's more convenient for you to believe that I'm a paid government shill, then so be it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But who is "they"? Who are these "socialists"? That's my point. How is blanket characterizing a whole group based on your experiences with a few people any different from what "the other guys" do?

To me it's irony at its finest. But I'm sure "they", are worse than you.

[–] Alteon 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Marxist Leninist Socialists primarily, if you read my comment. I'm a Social Democrat, and I've received enough disrespect from ML Socialists, that I'm done trying to interact with them entirely. I get that your trying to minimize my argument, by acting like I'm attacking socialism entirely and act like I'm some sort of government plant....hence, again, why I'm stating quite plainly that I'm a Social Democrat.

The otherside of the coin is that I want to reform our system by trying to fix the problems of capitalism, and they want a revolution to completely dismantle it. I believe that the reality of implementing a socialist economy is completely unrealistic in a country as big as ours within the next 25-50 years, and that a revolution (which they are essentially advocating for) would introduce chaos and uncertainty into our country, and inherently the world. There's no reality in which the movement gains widespread popular support in the short time frame that ML Socialists want. I firmly believe that the transition to a social democracy is a safer, more logical transition, and that as we adopt socialized programs, provide a better landscape for unions, and start reigning in inequality, we will naturally have more widespread support for a transition to a more socialist economy.

Metaphorically speaking, I want to slowly fix the problems that have cropped up around my house and upgrade things over time....they want to burn it down and build something that they believe is better. And they don't like me because of that, that I'm essentially impeding their progress.

Still "irony" at it's finest?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep. Lol. it only gets better.

[–] Alteon 1 points 1 month ago

I engaged with you in good faith, and you were merely a troll. Got it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Also claim that any history that doesn't fit their narrative is biased western history.

[–] jaggedrobotpubes 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's up to everybody to keep their heads on straight, even in the social pressure ("social pressure") of a dumb comment section.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

If we're relying on the individual to keep themselves correctly informed, we might be thoroughly fucked lol.

Maybe we should start pinning classes on media literacy, critical thinking/analyses to help the situation. Not even sarcasm, it genuinely might be needed as a built-in feature included in every web browser at this point.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's starting to feel more like we shouldn't allow political ads or discussions online without restrictions. Foreign actors and idiots are too quick to spread misinformation. If people want to get an idea of what others believe in, then go talk with other real people. This feels more like kids learning how to socialize from online games. People are dicks online, and you can interact with people that way in real life

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

Honestly I've started to start any political conversations with someone who's misinformed like: "Oh you're think they're eating dogs? I saw that too, but it isn't news. It's political ads. You know? Propaganda? But they are selling you fear instead. Turns out it's just fiction, lol. They tricked me too."

It generally opens up a legit conversation, and the person is less defensive since it's us talking about something else. Instead of me vs them.

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

Who are this "we" that should not allow political discussions online ? How would that be enforced?

Would Lemmy.world (the "foreign" social media) have to apply these US restrictions (via political pressure on it's host countries) or will the US block access to it?

Or your home instance sh.it just.works?

Do you even remotely realize how authoritarian your position is?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What I mean by that is no anonymous posting. A big issue is that you have thousands of bots pushing fake messages. It's worse with algorithms where the company can control how many people certain messages reach. But places like Lemmy and reddit aren't immune either. I still remember seeing how crazy reddit went during 2016 elections. All of a sudden a ton of pro Trump people were there. I couldn't trust a lot of news, pro or against Trump, because there would be false information posted (false anti information I bet also posted by Russian bots for this reason as well.)

As of now, we're basically allowing Russia, China and Iran to influence our citizens. That's partially why MAGA has such a an alternate view Trump. They don't ever hear the bad news about him, or just don't believe it.

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

No anonymous posting means what? Credit card verified accounts? Mobile number verified accounts? On all websites or just ones that meet a threshold like Facebook and Twitter?

What happens to sites hosted outside the US like the lemmy instance you use? Are they blocked? Does the US try to prosecute them and get them extradited like they do with pirate sites?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For larger website that allow political discussions and reach a lot of people, yes I think verification would help tackle disinformation. Same thing that happens to websites that don't follow GDPR is what I would imagine.

If you have suggestions for dealing with foreign disinformation, I'm all ears

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

GDPR violations result in fines. It also applies to entities engaged in commercial activities.

You are foreign to me and in fact a lot of misinformation and propaganda comes from the US. I would not block access to US media.

You still haven't answered what would to the Lemmy instances you currently use and allow anonymous (email as verification is not very hard) posting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I agree that a lot of disinformation comes from snd is aimed at the US.

For Lemmy, idk. On one hand, it could also be restricted. I can imagine restrictions being dependent on the size of the website in terms of traffic and posting.

On the other, if there isn't such a huge impact because of it's size, then restrictions aren't necessary.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Pardon me, but I've honestly not yet stumbled upon anything you guys describe here. Am I just not subscribed to communities doing this or something? Where do you read this kind of trash?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You find this trash on platforms that are actually popular with the general public, not Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ahh! Okay, that explains it. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Same here, almost everything I read on Lemmy is very left-leaning.

Honestly no idea where people are seeing these comments.