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Are conservatives disproportionately prone to being victims of fake news?

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ataraxia

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It seems they are. Fake news articles somehow just don't seem to gain as much traction among liberals, even when biased towards them. And it seems this is a phenomenon which a lot of different parties with different agendas, from the Russian government, to American would-be plutocrats, to unemployed Georgian computer science graduates, exploit to advance their own agendas.

"TBLISI, Georgia — Jobless and with graduation looming, a computer science student at the premier university in the nation of Georgia decided early this year that money could be made from America’s voracious appetite for passionately partisan political news. He set up a website, posted gushing stories about Hillary Clinton and waited for ad sales to soar.

“I don’t know why, but it did not work,” said the student, Beqa Latsabidze, 22, who was savvy enough to change course when he realized what did drive traffic: laudatory stories about Donald J. Trump that mixed real — and completely fake — news in a stew of anti-Clinton fervor.

More than 6,000 miles away in Vancouver, a Canadian who runs a satirical website, John Egan, had made a similar observation. Mr. Egan’s site, The Burrard Street Journal, offers sendups of the news, not fake news, and he is not trying to fool anyone. But he, too, discovered that writing about Mr. Trump was a “gold mine.” His traffic soared and his work, notably a story that President Obama would move to Canada if Mr. Trump won, was plundered by Mr. Latsabidze and other internet entrepreneurs for their own websites.

“It’s all Trump,” Mr. Egan said by telephone. “People go nuts for it.”

With Mr. Obama now warning of the corrosive threat from fake political news circulated on Facebook and other social media, the pressing question is who produces these stories, and how does this overheated, often fabricated news ecosystem work?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/w...onald-trump-hillary-clinton-georgia.html?_r=0
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...-problem-but-dont-worry-we-can-blame-the-main
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/w...atedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article
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If you're believing news off of Facebook, you (the general you) are an idiot whether you are left or right. Facebook and other social media is hardly the place to get factual news. FYI, this election I saw many stories against Hillary AND Trump on Facebook and social media that were more false than true and yes, people on both sides were making comments that showed they were "falling for it". confirmation bias is what people are looking for on social media, not facts.
 

Who was Jon Stewart's biggest audience?
 

No. However, with a portfolio of news sources like Huffington Post, DailyKos, ThinkProgress, Salon, WaPo, NYT, AP, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and so on, it's clear to see who is.
 

What about sources like, for example, 2 out of 3 of your links that reported stories about Trump's transition effort being in disarray.
Was that fake news? It was certainly bull****.
Of course, they weren't the only ones reporting that false story but does that mean it wasn't fake?
Being also driven by their own bias doesn't make it less fake, does it?
 

like my wife always says, if u believe everything u read on facebook, u might be a liberal.
 

I would argue that the news from places like Breitbart (and Fox, IMHO) are actually worse. They look more "real newsy".
 
FEEDING FRENZY

Ever hear of what is called a "feeding frenzy"?

Well, it happens in America around election dates. The only thing that has "changed" (in fact it is no change at all) is that the frenzy once was fostered by BoobTube election advertizing, and now it is boosted by the BoobInternet and particularly debate-sites. So, in fact, nothing has really changed.

Not in a country where "How a government works" (aka "Civics Class") is not the common education in the matter of national governance that we might think. From here: Can We Be Trusted with Our Own Government? The State of Civic Education in the U.S, by Janet Li, October 20, 2016, excerpt follows:


Moreover, aside from a "sense of duty", voters must actually vote. And there, Uncle Sam flops in the international ranking of voting frequency. Look for the US 9th from the bottom, here: U.S. voter turnout trails most developed countries.
 
There is no question that there is some vulnerability on both sides. But it seems that conservatives are far more prone to it. Far, far more.

"Conservatives have a fake news problem...

Buzzfeed gleefully reports that some of the Macedonian impresarios of fake news sites experimented with “left-leaning or pro-Bernie Sanders content,” but gave it up because “nothing performed as well on Facebook as Trump content...

In “How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News," Buzzfeed reporters traced dozens of fake U.S.-focused news websites to the tiny town of Vales, in Macedonia. (Yes, that Macedonia.) There they found a group of apolitical entrepreneurial youngsters who had hit upon an unlikely path forward in the economically fragile country – exploiting pro-Trump Americans’ gullibility to generate web traffic, and ad revenue.

Of course, the Macedonian sites are only a slice of the fake news industry, typically plagiarizing or embellishing the content of their sleazy U.S.-based confreres. But their success illustrates the impact that fake news is having, and the coldly mercenary motives behind much of it. One of the fake Macedonian sites, USA NewsFlash, boasts 621,000 fans on their Facebook page. The top article produced by the town’s unlikely cottage industry - “Hillary Clinton In 2013: ‘I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They’re Honest And Can’t Be Bought.’”- amassed over 500,000 likes and shares on Facebook."
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...-problem-but-dont-worry-we-can-blame-the-main
 
"So, are Trump supporters inherently more gullible - or, as the big media would have it, less scrupulous - than liberals?

Obviously, it's a loaded question - and an impossible one to answer. And yet, while liberals certainly have their own fake news problems, it's hard to deny that in the lead-up to this election fake news sites disproprotionately targeted Trump supporters. Indeed, if my own Facebook news feed is any indication, in the days before the election far too many Trump supporters were far too quick to play the unwitting mules to the digital crack being trafficked by the fake news kingpins, clicking "share" without fact-checking, or, strangely, apparently without being deterred by the grotesque and often downright immoral ads that plastered many of these crudely erected ersatz "conservative" sites. "
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/c...blame-the-main
 
Conservatism is the victim of the vast majority of fake news yep..
 
Moreover, the sad news about this last election is that the kids stayed away in droves. It was, as usual, the conservative elderly that showed up at the poll-booths.

However, when it comes to what is/was at stake, the results are, in fact, not just sad but horrific.

Hillary had planned to offer just what American kids need most. You see, only 50% of American high-school graduates go on to obtain a postsecondary degree, that sine qua non for a good-paying job in this new century of ours.

So, her offer of subsidizing the post-secondary (vocational, 2- & 4-year) costs at state-schools was a boon to that class of American families having an income of $100K per year - which means 90% of them.

All gone up in smoke on November 8th - poof ... !
 

That (bolded above) is quite a vague statement. IMHO, since much (most?) of the MSM leans left then fewer on the left would be apt to seek alternate sources for confirmation bias.
 
Kobie said:
Call the cops.
Click to expand...

They did already. Cant you here the music and sirens playing in the background?:alert They coming for you!!!! Flee!!! Flee while you still can!!! :lamo

 
11Bravo said:
the left got so defensive since hillary got smoked in the election.
Click to expand...

That's what happens when you spend months believing every word the leftist propaganda machine was telling you about DJT losing the election. Poor leftists still can't come to terms over that one. LMAO
 
Barely so. It's nearly ubiquitous among both the Left and Right at this point.
 

That wouldn't seem to be the case based on my FB newsfeed. It seems these fake articles are being shared more by liberals. Here are some examples over the last two days:

"Trump picks El Chapo to run DEA"
"Congress moves for FULL investigation of Donald Trumps Taxes and Business Ties"
"Ahead of Wisconsin Recount, 5000 Donald Trump Votes have already been disqualified"
"Trump chooses Sarah Palin for Secretary of State"
"Proof that Mike Pence was a gay porn star."

And on and on...
 

Of course. Like I said, both sides do it.

But the assertion that conservatives are far more prone to it and taken in by it is not just an opinion. It seems to be supported by multiple studies.

"The new study on voter receptivity to bunkum uses bull**** statements generated by earlier work by a group of Canadian psychologists. The researchers conducted a number of experiments in which they evaluated subjects for their reception and detection of pseudo-profound bull****. Very amusingly, the researchers generated their pseudo-profound bull**** from actual tweets from mystic Deepak Chopra and from websites that mimic Chopra’s opaque gnomic style...

In this earlier study, the Canadian researchers wanted to find out what sorts of people (if any) were particularly susceptible to thinking that bull**** somehow contained profound meaning. In some studies they test subjects for their IQs and analytic abilities. They report that there are just some people who broadly accept all kinds of epistemically suspect beliefs such as existence of ghosts, paranormal phenomena, conspiratorial ideation, and the efficacy of alternative medical treatments like homeopathy. They describe such people as being "uncritically open-minded."

“Although epistemically suspect claims may or may not themselves qualify as bull****, the lack of skepticism that underlies the acceptance of epistemically suspect claims should also promote positive bull**** receptivity,” generously observe the researchers. Interestingly, they find that bull**** sensitivity (the ability to detect it) is associated with lower paranormal belief, but not conspiratorial ideation or acceptance of alternative medicine. Religious believers also tended to rate bull**** statements as being more profound. The researchers did find that “increased bull**** sensitivity was associated with better performance on measures of analytic thinking."

In the new study in the journal PLoS One, two German researchers test to find out if bull**** detection (or lack thereof) is associated with specific political views in the United States. They first ask subjects where they fit on the usual conservative to liberal political spectrum and then for whom they planned to vote. Once politically pigeonholed, the subjects are asked evaluate the list of bull**** and mundane statements from the earlier study for their profundity. They report:


Results revealed that favorable views of all three Republican candidates were positively related to judging bull**** statements as profound. The smallest correlation was found for Donald Trump. Although we observe a positive association between bull**** and support for the three Democrat candidates, this relationship is both substantively small and statistically insignificant. The general measure of political liberalism/conservatism was also related to judging bull**** statements as profound in that individuals who were more politically conservative had a higher tendency to see profoundness in bull**** statements."

Conservatives More Susceptible to Bull**** Than Liberals - Hit & Run : Reason.com
 
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ocean515 said:
:roll:

Class personified...................
Click to expand...
By nature people tend to generally believe things that support their pre-conceived notions and worldviews even when they've been shown to be false. There's an increase of fake news sites designed to generate income through clicks and adds. Most of the ones that I'm aware of are geared at right wing thinking. I'm sure that there are fake news sites geared towards liberals, though I think that right wingers may be easier targets to feed misinformation.
 
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