this is what makes the parasocial aspect of social media so good at building up misinformation-spreading grifters after all, who's more credible than your friend who seems to have done more of the reading than you have? and the youtuber you watch isn't your friend, but you feel like they are - ThreadSky

rincewind.run • 63 days ago

this is what makes the parasocial aspect of social media so good at building up misinformation-spreading grifters

after all, who's more credible than your friend who seems to have done more of the reading than you have? and the youtuber you watch isn't your friend, but you feel like they are

Reposted from William B. Fuckley

People don’t actually want to Do Their Own Research, what they want is some entity that they consider credible to tell them what to think. We know this because this is what Doing Your Own Research actually translates to for most of the people that do it.

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nonexistpatricia.bsky.social•63 days ago

It's the Alex Jones-ification of everything.

shanzival.bsky.social•63 days ago

Reminds me of most any time a libertarian or objectivist sent me links as their proof.

You'll never convince them otherwise because they've decided those links are more authoritative than anything else.

"I know you're wrong but I'm not sure why, so I'll have to check with the forums first"

thepopper.bsky.social•63 days ago

Yeah.

I try to be the guy that does the reading but it's really lonely...

For instance.

You know who actually read the Mueller Report?

This guy.

You know who didn't?

Lots of elected officials and opinion makers...

😑

crispybanks.bsky.social•63 days ago

This is also what makes TikTok so uniquely terrible.

pershing48.bsky.social•63 days ago

"Wow this person seems extremely confident, they must be correct!"

tlytaoq.bsky.social•63 days ago

"i don't read vetted news articles i wait for micah to post" would be bad no matter how good that sounds at base

thirdeyeerisian.bsky.social•63 days ago

I literally fact check memes before sharing them.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•63 days ago

Absolutely true. People trust their weird uncle on Facebook more than basically any source of credible information.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•63 days ago

My own half baked theory is that text based social media is particularly insidious because in your head you’re reading other people’s words in your own voice so they sound like your words and you’re just doing inception on yourself.

ghostpalmtechnique.bsky.social•63 days ago

Pardon the digression, but I definitely give ~unique voices to different people that I've never met; I'm not hearing anybody else on social media in my own voice. I think this is a case where human minds are diverse and over-generalization is perilous.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•63 days ago

This is one reason this theory is self confessed as half baked.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•63 days ago

Didn’t mean to apply it to everybody, there are some people who don’t process text as reading in an internal voice, etc. It’s still *kind of* something I think, and something I think about when I find myself repeating something I’ve heard someone else say.

mutantmell.net•63 days ago

I do think there's something here -- there's a lot of people that read pop science airport books and regurgitate extremely dubious stuff from them. A lot of people don't critically engage with text.

mutantmell.net•63 days ago

Interesting, I have the opposite half-baked theory that video is the particularly insidious one, mostly because YouTube has been such an effective vector for recruiting people.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•63 days ago

Yeah, I think video is devilishly effective for the obvious reasons (slick, you put it on and it self-propels into your eyes and ears, etc).

magnificentskinbag.bsky.social•63 days ago

I'd like to see some sort of study on this (if it's even possible to design a study to confirm or disprove it), but I think this is a pretty solid theory to start with

socialistchi.bsky.social•63 days ago

THIS

people don't want to go around, thinking their "friends" are bad. Because "of course I have good friends! they've been there for them through everything."

This behavior slowly turns into, "they never lie to me! I know them and they're not like that"

"Everyone lies" -Vicodin doctor-

4quad.bsky.social•63 days ago

And that's why integrity - not some commoditized # - is the coin of the realm.

rincewind.run•63 days ago

so people feel like they're Doing Their Own Research with vastly less credible sources simply because the delivery mechanism feels more cozy and personal

crs1.bsky.social•63 days ago

“Street Lamp Effect, Line One”

rincewind.run•63 days ago

correct, even if you like my politics takes I am Just A Guy and reading my takes does not mean you did your research, it means you read the takes of a politics sicko who likes to talk about Discworld on the internet

incubusintraining.bsky.social•63 days ago

The self-awareness makes you a good follow. And I've seen this go tits up for people so often when the person demonstrates they've gotten high on their own supply. Seeing Bree Newsom spiral into absurdity fucking hurt.

goodcitizen.bsky.social•63 days ago

I fear for the world, and the individual in the smaller sense, that the opinions of others -rather than inform/help-actually “shape” an opinion. Everyone is influenced, sure, but ffs you HAVE to be able to say “this is mine and mine alone”.

sellmeyoursoul.bsky.social•63 days ago

So still more reliable than a reporter who works for a billionaire owned news establishment?

Yeah, we’re kind of fucked until we collectively figure out how to establish reliable sources of well researched “truth.”

rosedees.bsky.social•63 days ago

We can essentially boil this down as a difference at who has good filters for reliable teachers and who cant.

tlytaoq.bsky.social•63 days ago

your discworld politics, however, are pristine. when i read your takes i feel like im listening to pratchett talk with giddiness about some other series he didn't make

transdragon.bsky.social•63 days ago

Followed for Discworld Disc-corse.

annporterla.bsky.social•63 days ago

That you talk about Discworld on the Internet enhances your creditability, though.

rvaux16.bsky.social•63 days ago

Admittedly, Discworld offers some pretty good insight about politics.

iainrb.bsky.social•63 days ago

It works in person too. Folk literally trust total strangers more than the news media.

This was about the eclipse last spring, but I'm not even an astronomer -- I'm a computational biologist and I got *my* eclipse news from the mainstream media.

bobsyouruncle.bsky.social•63 days ago

Absolutely. During the 2019 protests in Hong Kong a huge number of expat moms told me that they knew for a fact that the protesters were being paid by anti Chinese forces.
When pressed they said it was their friend’s friend’s son who was supposedly being paid but they would never lie.
🤬

fumblebee.bsky.social•63 days ago

I’d counter that there are subjects that you need a Lot Of Time to properly understand. Terms of art aren’t clear to laymen either, and one could encounter and misinterpret them super easily while building an unearned confidence.

Part of this is figuring out who knows their shit

digitaldraco.bsky.social•63 days ago

Agreed. And unfortunately a lot of people are bad at that, too.

fumblebee.bsky.social•63 days ago

YUP
https://bsky.app/profile/fumblebee.bsky.social/post/3leikq6drv225

fumblebee.bsky.social•63 days ago

There’s a flip side where people misidentify and over-trust but still, doing your own research isn’t a substitute for finding people with expertise you don’t have.

No one can be trusted to be subject matter experts on everything. Knowing how to ID the actual experts is critical

jay-lynn-farrow.bsky.social•63 days ago

fumblebee.bsky.social•63 days ago

Exactly, though! I see too many people thinking that they’ve done the research and turn around to misuse terms of art. We have to rely on experts and sometimes assuming that you can rely on the correct answer by googling is an embarrassing sort of arrogance

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