this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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Scientists show how ‘doing your own research’ leads to believing conspiracies — This effect arises because of the quality of information churned out by Google’s search engine (www.vice.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Scientists show how ‘doing your own research’ leads to believing conspiracies — This effect arises because of the quality of information churned out by Google’s search engine::Researchers found that people searching misinformation online risk falling into “data voids” that increase belief in conspiracies.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

While conventional wisdom holds that researching the veracity of fake news would reduce belief in misinformation, a study published on Wednesday in Nature has found that using online search engines to vet conspiracies can actually increase the chance that someone will believe it. The researchers point to a known problem in search called "data voids." Sometimes, there's not a lot of high-quality information to counter misleading headlines or surrounding fringe theories. So, when someone sees an article online about an “engineered famine” due to COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines, and conducts an unsophisticated search based on those keywords, they may find articles that reaffirm their bias.

This is interesting and something I hadn't really thought about before. The Internet's conspiracy circles are becoming a giant, weapons-grade "gish gallop". The difference is that nobody is even arguing with the original conspiracy theorist so nobody even gets a chance to counter any of the arguments until they've become mainstream enough for those wishing to counter to be made aware of them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

A lot of those data voids are the result of the academic publishing industry too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There's another thing I hadn't thought much about, but did see a bit during COVID lockdowns. People would stumble upon some paper published by whomever that was on a seemingly reputable domain, and without knowing anything about the subject claim that it proved things it didn't and then reference those papers as proof.

Then they'd post on their own blog(s) run up some SEO, and boom, you got the beginning of a rabbit hole.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Excellent point.