How do we tell what's real?

[LAS14]

A few days ago there was a thread about the people stranded aftter a Trump rally. I asked how we knew it was true and one person passed on a link to the local newspaper story. That was very helpful advice in general, I thought.

And then one of the posts passed on a Facebook post, ostensibly by a relative of a participant, describing something fairly violent. I can't remember the details. I asked how we knew whether it was true and several people opined that it wasn't or it would have made the national news. Again, good advice if the incident is noticeable enough.

Today there was a picture in the Your Sunday LOL Cats thread in The Lounge. The title was "When your pharmacist goes dark," and it was a photo of a pharmacy counter with the P missing from the sign above it. Clever visual pun, but I wondered whether or not it was photo-shopped. Not important here, but how do you tell?

I come back to a thought I've posted in various contexts. We desperately need the main stream media. We need organizations who have the resources to research these things and the business motivation to preserve their reputation for credibility.

[gab13by13]

1. Oops, I thought you were being philosophical

It is not, I think therefore I am, it is really, I am, therefore I am.

[Jerry2144]

7. I am. Therefore I think.

Isn’t that got it goes?

[Wednesdays]

13. "To be is to do"--Socrates. · "To do is to be"--Jean-Paul Sartre.

“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra.

[Towlie]

27. "Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

(Seen posted on the wall of a skydiving classroom.)

[thomski64]

2. ..they have the resources..

..but lack the business model,
to call bullshit on manifestly obvious gaslighting. This one says this, that one says that, we're out of time!(Ubrelvy) (Ozempic) (etc,etc)

[TommieMommy]

3. Exactly due to photo shop and AI impersonating real people making up stuff

[CrispyQ]

30. And then there are the morons who don't care that it's fake if it promtes their POV.

Like the recent AI image of the little girl with her dog in a rowboat on a flooded street after the hurricanes. After it went viral, it was posted over & over again that it was fake & yet in those very same posts, people responded they didn't care. "It could have happened," was an okay excuse for them to keep sharing it. SMDH

[chouchou]

4. Don't delve into strange/weird things too much. I mean, we're not really particles....

...just energy blobs that appear for us as realities. Try to enjoy it.

[EYESORE 9001]

6. My energy blobs need to get their shit together

Gotta work together to move my reality around

[chouchou]

10. Amen! When I started pursuing physics into deep waters, I thought "Hey I didn't sign up for this shit!"

[EYESORE 9001]

24. Statistical mechanics was a real head-scratcher

I took it as part of a Physical Chemistry course. And I minored in Math too. Still one of the hardest classes I’ve taken.

[TwilightZone]

5. The popular opinion is that the media doesn't fact-check.

In reality, they do a massive amount of fact-checking. Frankly, I'm not sure how people miss it, though I often wonder if the "missing" is intentional in pursuit of an agenda. There's so much knee-jerking about the media that's it hard to tell. One person complained that CNN never covers Trump's abhorrent behavior and in another thread, that same poster said that they never watch CNN and haven't in years. It's not surprising to not see coverage from an outlet one never watches.

There were numerous complaints that no one was fact-checking the VP debate. I did a quick Google search and found about ten organizations* that were either fact-checking it live or immediately thereafter. And that was just on the first couple pages of results.

The media isn't perfect, of course. They make mistakes (don't we all?) and there can be some perceived bias, depending on the source. But, as you noted, it's an industry that's badly needed to provide some accuracy, perspective, and context, particularly in the age of pervasive social media disinformation.



*https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19525091

[gab13by13]

8. The MSM is complicit

I ask this question seriously, do they teach ethics in Journalism majors?

[TwilightZone]

9. Blanket assertions are almost always false.

Including that one. Lumping every media organization into one nice, neat box, as if they're all exactly the same, is just lazy.

[Keepthesoulalive]

16. Judith miller

Maggie Haberman and Katy Tur . Front page Hillary emails just before the election.

[TwilightZone]

28. Not sure what your point is.

Those three are not the only members of the news organizations to which they belong. They are also not representative of all of the other employees and content from those organizations. Katy Tur, for example, is nothing like Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell.

If you're judging a news organization based on one member out of hundreds or thousands, you're just proving my point.

[Keepthesoulalive]

33. When Michael Cohen has someone in your organization

On speed dial it makes people question your integrity. I want the truth no bullshit , no both sides, no Joe Scarborough giving airtime to trump until he insulted his wife. If you are a news organization report the news , investigate but don’t give airtime to airheads and pretend you practice journalism.

[LAS14]

17. Thanks for this. They do have a motivation to maintain their credibility. nt

[Ping Tung]

11. There are no facts. Only interpretations. Freidrich Nietzsche

[tavernier]

12. Step one: Turn off Fox News.

They’ve already had to pay millions for lying.

Step 2: If it sounds like it could be a lie or a conspiracy (famous people eating babies in the back room of a pizza restaurant), check some VALID sources.

[LAS14]

18. Yeah, but what if it's truly believable, like violence breaking out...

... among people stranded at a Trump rally?

And reading DU might lead you to believe there are no VALID sources.

[TwilightZone]

22. "there are no VALID sources"

As I noted in another response, blanket statements are almost always false and are just lazy. Too many people use them as shortcuts and lump all stories and all sources into one nice, neat box with no context and no reasoning. It's just easier to blame the media as a whole for all the ills of society than to understand nuance and employ a little critical thinking.

Frankly, it's just silly and it's tiresome. There are plenty of legitimate sources, including most of the major media organizations. Of course, one still has to seek independent confirmation as needed, but proclaiming that a source like the Washington Post is always wrong or misleading or fully in the tank for Trump is simply not true.

[LAS14]

29. Can't tell if you understood that I agree with you. I was just...

... pointing out that my reply #17 (thanking you, by the way) that MSM is one of our most reliable valid sources. But we do have to think about the sources. Facebook posts and even DU posts are not the final authority.

[TwilightZone]

19. Social media is probably a bigger problem than Fox News at this point.

I don't have any data at hand to prove that, but Fox News's audience is very limited in comparison to the reach of social media. And social media has the added bonus of introducing mob-think into the equation. It must be true because two million people "liked" it.

Re: step 2 - I just assume anything that sounds unlikely is false until it's proven otherwise. Saves a lot of time.

Yes, valid sources are good. Some random guy's blog or a social media post from an unknown are *not* valid sources. In fact, DU favorites like Medias Touch aren't, either. They're kind of our version of a sensationalist tabloid. There's a basis of truth in much of their content, but it's often either misrepresented or overblown.

[Wednesdays]

31. But then, how do we know they're valid sources?

Chicken and egg.

[Prairie_Seagull]

14. Will we get to a point where AI will be used to impersonate humans

to sign up for accounts and post for purposes of swaying opinion? Have we experienced it already? We have had this flash in the pan discussion already but will we soon need a fire extinguisher.

[TwilightZone]

15. Bots have been around for a long time.

Basically, as long as there's been technology, there have been bots. Similarly, as long as social media has been around, there have been social media bots.

AI isn't required to do exactly what you're suggesting, though it does make it easier. Similar things have been available and running for a couple of decades already. AI will just help make them more pervasive and harder to detect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bot

[Prairie_Seagull]

26. Thanks for your input TwilightZone.

Precisely.

[LAS14]

20. It's probably already possible for an amateur AI/Photo shop user...

... to create multiple crowd shots containing violence from the real handful of crowd shots. Probably isn't even hard.

[LeftInTX]

21. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

"Trump is melting", "Trump.has stopped all.public appearances", etc etc..

He has been melting for nine years now!

[Towlie]

23. Some believe it when they see it, others see it when they believe it.

[Marthe48]

25. UPDATED: I shared the pharmacy meme with my nephew

Last edited Tue Oct 22, 2024, 10:48 PM - Edit history (1)

EDITED TO ADD: I asked my nephew and he said he was dead serious. Said he saw the Harmacy about 5 years ago.

I don't know if he was joking or not, but he said that pharmacy was in Agora Hills, Ca. He's around that area.

He could've being sarcastic. I'll ask.

We have plenty of tools to determine what is real and what isn't. If I want information, I look for links that are .gov .edu .org These sites are usually not selling things, so are usually impartial. I avoid links to sources that have been determined to be backed by entities unfriendly to my country (newsmas, fox, etc)

I look for several sources before I confirm to myself if a story is true or questionable. If click on a link to a site, I check for the date of the post, then when the site was updated.

The other day, I saw a Google click bait story that King Charles was diagnosed with cancer, given 2 years to live. I thought it was breaking news, checked DU for a link, was surprised not to see a link. When I got home, I checked further and saw that the headline was linked to his diagnosis earlier this year.

I will also check Snopes.

I usually wait to post to see if the story is true or debunked. I rely on my gut to make a good decision about any news I read. I know that is probably the least scientific, but I have to start somewhere. Beyond that, if traitor said it, it's a lie, because he prefers lies to reality. I distrust any of his adherents, too.

As for facebook, maybe other sites, check the page of the person who posted. How long have they been active on that site? How many posts? How many friends? Do they mention anything local, like restaurants or events? In 2022, my library friend posted a good test for spotting fakes, learned a lot from it.

[CrispyQ]

32. A fellow DUer turned me onto this site.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com

They rate various media sources by accuracy & bias. It's a start, anyway. As for fake stuff being passed off as real, people gotta sharpen up. I don't see any evidence of that happening, though.

[LAS14]

34. Thanks!! nt

[Wiz Imp]

38. Sites like that are good in theory, but I have yet to find one that rates media accurately

They all seem to buy into the old "liberal news media" trope which was never true.

I mean this site classifies all of the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) as Left-Center Biased. Hell they even rate Politico as Left-Center biased. This Politico:https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-media-scandal-germany-bild/ The new owner of Politico, Axel Springer, has a decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes.

Only somebody who at least leans right would claim any of those outlets have a bias to the left.

Somebody has to put everything into a category and of course, their biases factor into their ratings. The Overton Window has moved so far to the right that stuff that was considered leans right 20 years ago is now considered full-scale left (by the media). But in reality, something that was leans right 20 years ago still leans right if people look at things from a real world historical viewpoint.

[LAS14]

35. This is sobering. (News outlets)

We've had occasion to stay in hotels 3 times in the past 4 months. One was a pretty nice one in Manhattan. The others were in rural New England (leaf peeping), one of which was very upscale (not normal for us, a treat). None of them had CNN or MSNBC on the TV. All of them had Fox and Newsmax. At least one of them had 2 versions of each.

This on top of what I recently learned about Sinclair's hold on rural news markets.

What can be done????

[Kaleva]

36. Only a small percentage of adults watch cable news

It's in the single digits. And the number of cable subscribers keeps declining year after year.

[LAS14]

40. Well, yeah, but if 2 flavors each of Fox and Newsmax are available....

... shouldn't CNN be available too????

[Wiz Imp]

41. You mean the TVs in your room? That's insane

I also had 2 hotel stays in the past month and like 5 in the past year and a half and all of them had CNN & MSNBC available on the TVs in addition to Fox. I had no interest in watching any of them, but I would have definitely filed a complaint with the hotel and probably corporate headquarters if they had only Fox available as a news channel.

[ismnotwasm]

37. Soooo. I asked ChatGBT. Heh. Good answer though

Telling what’s real can be challenging, especially in a world saturated with information, much of which can be misleading or manipulated. There are a few key approaches you can take:

1. Critical Thinking: Question the source of information and its purpose. Ask yourself why it’s being presented in a certain way and whether the source is credible.
2. Cross-Referencing: Don’t rely on a single source. Check multiple credible sources for consistency. If several independent outlets or experts present similar findings, it’s more likely to be accurate.
3. Look for Evidence: Does the information have verifiable facts, data, or research backing it? Claims without evidence are often less reliable.
4. Recognize Biases: Be aware of your own biases and the biases of the sources you’re consulting. All media and individuals have perspectives, but understanding those can help you evaluate the information more objectively.
5. Fact-Checking: Use fact-checking websites and tools to verify questionable claims. Platforms like Snopes, FactCheck.org, or Politifact are good for checking the validity of trending stories or statements.
6. Rely on Experts: For complex subjects, such as science or history, look to experts in the field. Peer-reviewed studies and well-known specialists tend to offer more reliable information than generalists or those without expertise.

Do you find any of these strategies particularly helpful?

[LAS14]

39. Thanks! Good check list. It gives me a peek...

... at what elementary and high school teachers might be teaching their kids about media literacy. I often reflect that I'm glad I don't have to teach kids any more, with the prospect of parents leaping out of the woodwork to accuse me of spouting left wing propoganda when I suggest that news sources need to be verified. This looks nice and neutral.