Post by NotTheFakeGRMPA on Oct 18, 2020 20:36:56 GMT -5
America is experiencing 'truth decay' at an alarming rate, experts warn
Adriana Belmonte·Senior EditorOctober 17, 2020, 8:47 AM·9 mins read
10-13 minutes
Fake news — specifically, factually inaccurate information that is presented as vetted by professional journalists — has become a nationwide phenomenon over the past few years, particularly on social media.
Many Americans are more ill-informed than ever before given how easy it currently is to spread misinformation — false information that is spread regardless of intent to mislead — and disinformation — deliberately misleading or biased information manipulated narrative or facts.
The RAND Corporation is calling this trend “truth decay,” defined as “the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life.”
A man wears a shirt reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist." as supporters gather to rally with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a cargo hangar at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A man wears a shirt reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist." as supporters gather to rally with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a cargo hangar at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport, November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The three trends of truth decay
Dr. Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political science for the RAND Corporation, explained the three particular scientific trends that characterize truth decay.
“The first would be a disagreement about objective facts and data, in places where we have clear data, clear evidence, and people continue to reject that box, or to say the opposite is the case,” Kavanagh told Yahoo Finance. “Examples would be the debate over the safety of vaccines, is one case where we have an overwhelming body of evidence showing that they’re safe, but an increasing number of people saying that they’re not safe.”
This has been the case with the anti-vaccine community, which promotes itself as for “vaccine safety.” The community often denies scientific evidence, convinced that vaccines can cause fatal harm and other damage to the body, which is an alarming belief amid the coronavirus pandemic.
For example, 44% of Republicans believe a conspiracy theory that Microsoft (MSFT) founder and billionaire Bill Gates wants to use a coronavirus vaccine to implant microchips into billions of people so that he can monitor their movements (although this has no basis).
“The second trend is … if you’re looking at disinformation online, which is the blurring of the line between fact and opinion,” Kavanagh said. “Online, it’s really easy to mix opinion, facts, analysis, falsehood, and it’s difficult for a reader to disentangle those different types of information.”
The challenge to stopping this is the First Amendment, which protects free speech. Social media companies have come under fire in recent years for allowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation online, and some like Facebook and Twitter have started taking steps to addressing this.
“It’s a really tricky challenge because that line between making sure that we’re providing accurate information and getting disinformation out of the ecosystem and protecting free speech and letting people express their opinions and their beliefs, is a fine line,” Kavanagh said. “I think one step that can be taken is better labeling of false information, making sure that people are aware when they’re seeing information that has been proven false. You see some social media platforms, like Twitter, starting to do more of that.”
Twitter now adds a label at the top of a tweet it deems to be spreading false information. This has happened on several occasions to high-profile figures, including President Trump on more than one occasion.
“And then the final trend that we look to is declining trust in institutions,” Kavanagh said. “Especially those that are, or were, looked to as sources of factual information, so the government, the media. Trust in those institutions has been down and as a result, people feel not only is it hard to figure out what’s a fact and what’s not, but they’re not sure where to look to find those facts. And so, those trends together is how we would describe this phenomenon that we call truth decay.”
An April 2020 survey from RAND found that 41% of Americans believe that the news has become less reliable than it was in the past. At the same time, the same survey found that ⅓ of Americans use news sources they believed were less reliable, like social media or their peers.
Adriana Belmonte·Senior EditorOctober 17, 2020, 8:47 AM·9 mins read
10-13 minutes
Fake news — specifically, factually inaccurate information that is presented as vetted by professional journalists — has become a nationwide phenomenon over the past few years, particularly on social media.
Many Americans are more ill-informed than ever before given how easy it currently is to spread misinformation — false information that is spread regardless of intent to mislead — and disinformation — deliberately misleading or biased information manipulated narrative or facts.
The RAND Corporation is calling this trend “truth decay,” defined as “the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life.”
A man wears a shirt reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist." as supporters gather to rally with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a cargo hangar at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A man wears a shirt reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist." as supporters gather to rally with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a cargo hangar at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport, November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The three trends of truth decay
Dr. Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political science for the RAND Corporation, explained the three particular scientific trends that characterize truth decay.
“The first would be a disagreement about objective facts and data, in places where we have clear data, clear evidence, and people continue to reject that box, or to say the opposite is the case,” Kavanagh told Yahoo Finance. “Examples would be the debate over the safety of vaccines, is one case where we have an overwhelming body of evidence showing that they’re safe, but an increasing number of people saying that they’re not safe.”
This has been the case with the anti-vaccine community, which promotes itself as for “vaccine safety.” The community often denies scientific evidence, convinced that vaccines can cause fatal harm and other damage to the body, which is an alarming belief amid the coronavirus pandemic.
For example, 44% of Republicans believe a conspiracy theory that Microsoft (MSFT) founder and billionaire Bill Gates wants to use a coronavirus vaccine to implant microchips into billions of people so that he can monitor their movements (although this has no basis).
“The second trend is … if you’re looking at disinformation online, which is the blurring of the line between fact and opinion,” Kavanagh said. “Online, it’s really easy to mix opinion, facts, analysis, falsehood, and it’s difficult for a reader to disentangle those different types of information.”
The challenge to stopping this is the First Amendment, which protects free speech. Social media companies have come under fire in recent years for allowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation online, and some like Facebook and Twitter have started taking steps to addressing this.
“It’s a really tricky challenge because that line between making sure that we’re providing accurate information and getting disinformation out of the ecosystem and protecting free speech and letting people express their opinions and their beliefs, is a fine line,” Kavanagh said. “I think one step that can be taken is better labeling of false information, making sure that people are aware when they’re seeing information that has been proven false. You see some social media platforms, like Twitter, starting to do more of that.”
Twitter now adds a label at the top of a tweet it deems to be spreading false information. This has happened on several occasions to high-profile figures, including President Trump on more than one occasion.
“And then the final trend that we look to is declining trust in institutions,” Kavanagh said. “Especially those that are, or were, looked to as sources of factual information, so the government, the media. Trust in those institutions has been down and as a result, people feel not only is it hard to figure out what’s a fact and what’s not, but they’re not sure where to look to find those facts. And so, those trends together is how we would describe this phenomenon that we call truth decay.”
An April 2020 survey from RAND found that 41% of Americans believe that the news has become less reliable than it was in the past. At the same time, the same survey found that ⅓ of Americans use news sources they believed were less reliable, like social media or their peers.
