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105

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

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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[–] Habahnow 1 points 4 weeks 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.

[–] freeman 2 points 4 weeks 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?

[–] Habahnow 1 points 3 weeks 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

[–] freeman 1 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] Habahnow 1 points 3 weeks 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.