When researchers trolled conspiracy nuts with random false info, they bought it every time

[hunter]

66. Okay, I read the study. First of all the researchers didn't troll anyone.

The researchers were merely observers of publicly available facebook posts.

The title of the study is:

Science vs Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation

In their analysis of facebook posts they did find trolls who had posted false information, often from parody sites and such, in communities of "Conspiracy Theorists" and then they measured the dissemination of this false information as CT reality. Yet that's not the meat of the study.

What they found, not surprisingly, is the CT people (labeled CT by the CT newsy items they liked and forwarded) formed one community, and the Sciency people formed another community (based on the sciency news articles they liked and forward.) The sciency people occasionally ventured into the CT community to debunk conspiracy theories, but it was rarer for the CT community to venture into Sciency communities.

If we analyzed DU in the same way these researchers analyzed facebook, we'd find similar patterns.

Etc.

I deliberately use the word "sciency" in reaction to this:

Our findings, coherently... indicate that the relationship between beliefs in conspiracy theories and the need for cognitive closure—i.e. the attitude of conspiracists to avoid profound scrutiny of evidence to a given matter of fact—is the driving factors for the diffusion of false claims.

Many readers of science and the sciency news are seeking that same sort of "cognitive closure" and they spread their sciency news for similar reasons.

Anyways, is deadstate yours?

The T&A advertising from adblade is a little distracting, and links to many sites that have a certain "CT" quality about them.





http://www.adblade.com