How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation

[NWRatCon]

The existence of objective reality is no longer a thing with modern "conservatism", I take it.

It is the basis for two favorite disinformation techniques practiced liberally (pun intended) by such advocates: false equivalency, and whataboutism.

This is the second post I have seen today from Trump supporters denying that there is no objective way to tell what's true and what's not.

It must be early for you.

 

[Peacenik]

How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation (NYT, Subscription)​

A typical lesson that Saara Martikka, a teacher in Hameenlinna, Finland, gives her students goes like this: She presents her eighth graders with news articles. Together, they discuss: What’s the purpose of the article? How and when was it written? What are the author’s central claims?
“Just because it’s a good thing or it’s a nice thing doesn’t mean it’s true or it’s valid,” she said. In a class last month, she showed students three TikTok videos, and they discussed the creators’ motivations and the effect that the videos had on them.
Her goal, like that of teachers around Finland, is to help students learn to identify false information.

Finland ranked No. 1 of 41 European countries on resilience against misinformation for the fifth time in a row in a survey published in October by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. Officials say Finland’s success is not just the result of its strong education system, which is one of the best in the world, but also because of a concerted effort to teach students about fake news. Media literacy is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool.

If the United States were serious about educational reform, they would pay attention to this. Our societal skill at critical thinking is eroding.

After Finland, the European countries that ranked highest for resilience to misinformation in the Open Society Institute survey were Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland and Sweden. The countries that were the most vulnerable to misinformation were Georgia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. The survey results were calculated based on scores for press freedom, the level of trust in society and scores in reading, science and math.

The United States was not included in the survey, but other polls show that misinformation and disinformation have become more prevalent since 2016 and that Americans’ trust in the news media is near a record low. A survey by Gallup, published in October, found that just 34 percent of Americans trusted the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, slightly higher than the lowest number that the organization recorded, in 2016.

Why can't the USA do something like this?

Instead, we have governors like DeSantis of Florida trying to make laws to prevent teaching students who to distinguish between fact and fiction.

They made up a whole list of 'forbidden subjects.' Basically, anything they call 'woke,' they don't want taut.

Being woke is being well informed and caring about others. Of course, that's the last thing selfish Republicans want people to be.

 

[NWRatCon]

The Clinton campaign funded it.

FEC fines Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC over Trump-Russia dossier research | CNN Politics

Federal election regulators fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee earlier this month for not properly disclosing the money they spent on controversial opposition research that led to the infamous Trump-Russia dossier.

www.cnn.com

And here we have a FINE example of exactly the problem with the lack of critical thinking applied to the process. Notwithstanding the substantial documentation I have provided, to which you are purportedly responding (obviously without having read any of it), you persist in pursuing a partisan-baiting nonsensical approach. My initial response is: so? What are you trying to convey?

The next step is to pursue the subject critically (which I did in my previous post). Is there bias involved? (Did Steele even know who he was working for?) How did it come to be published? Is it accurate? Is it verifiable? Are there elements of accuracy or inaccuracy? What are they?

But no, your preference, as expressed here, is to argue by inference and implication without support. So very, very typical, and so very disappointing (but instructive!), because it is exactly the kind of non-critical consumption the education referenced in the OP is supposed to counter.

I have led you to the water, please, PLEASE drink.

 

[NWRatCon]

Being woke is being well informed and caring about others. Of course, that's the last thing selfish Republicans want people to be.

Especially this.

 

[NWRatCon]

Why can't the USA do something like this?

In some locales, they do, but where it is most needed, it is both absent and actively discouraged. To wit:

Instead, we have governors like DeSantis of Florida trying to make laws to prevent teaching students who to distinguish between fact and fiction.

They made up a whole list of 'forbidden subjects.' Basically, anything they call 'woke,' they don't want [taught].

Intellectual pursuits, like Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project, are derided without thought and countered in similar fashion (without intellectual substance or honesty). Virtually every critic of them are completely uninformed and/or determined to misinform on the subjects. [These are exemplars. Please don't use them as excuses to further derail the thread.]

 

[Peacenik]

In some locales, they do, but where it is most needed, it is both absent and actively discouraged. To wit:

Intellectual pursuits, like Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project, are derided without thought and countered in similar fashion (without intellectual substance or honesty). Virtually every critic of them are completely uninformed and/or determined to misinform on the subjects. [These are exemplars. Please don't use them as excuses to further derail the thread.]

Don't Say Woke laws: The modern day version of book burning.

 

[What if...?]

Yep, many choose a steady diet of confirmation bias. BTW, that was the point made in the post to which you replied.

They are actively led to the desired conclusions. They literally don’t see things that don’t confirm their bias in their feeds.

Everyone’s is unique to them based on algorithms and AI. To keep their attention so things, including pure narrative, seem like the truth because they don’t see any evidence to the contrary unless they specifically look.

 

[What if...?]

Not similar situations at all - their was no attempt by the government to suppress talking about that ‘perfect‘ phone call on social media.

But the motivation behind trumps “favor” and the desire to smear Biden just before the election is identical.

Political dirt. Doesn’t need to be factual or relevant. Just elicit the desired emotional response in the target demo.

 

[LostInSeattle]

It’s behind a paywall.

Note that the OP excerpt indicated that most folks in the US already know not to trust the news media.

Distrusting a media source is not the same thing as being able to think critically. Lots of QANON believers distrusted the "mainstream" media (an often misused and misunderstood term), and relied instead on their own "research". They still lacked the critical thinking skills to discern truth from fiction. Most people don't know how to calibrate for priors and confirmation bias.

Get news from many sources and don't trust any one of them to get everything right, to always report accurately and fairly. It's impossible. Every article involves choices - of subject, of focus, of whom to interview, of what to emphasize and what to disregard, even of whether to report it at all. As a consumer, you have to triangulate and use hindsight to ask, "How well did the NYT or Breitbart report on that issue?"

In my experience, some news sources get most of it right most of the time. And others almost never. Trust of the mass media among Republicans is low, in part because of Trump and Fox constantly lambasting the "fake" media coupled with the dystopian notion of "alternative facts", and the cognitive dissonance that arises when "real" factual reporting contradicts preconceptions. That's hard to overcome.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Distrusting a media source is not the same thing as being able to think critically. Lots of QANON believers distrusted the "mainstream" media (an often misused and misunderstood term), and relied instead on their own "research". They still lacked the critical thinking skills to discern truth from fiction. Most people don't know how to calibrate for priors and confirmation bias.

Get news from many sources and don't trust any one of them to get everything right, to always report accurately and fairly. It's impossible. Every article involves choices - of subject, of focus, of whom to interview, of what to emphasize and what to disregard, even of whether to report it at all. As a consumer, you have to triangulate and use hindsight to ask, "How well did the NYT or Breitbart report on that issue?"

In my experience, some news sources get most of it right most of the time. And others almost never. Trust of the mass media among Republicans is low, in part because of Trump and Fox constantly lambasting the "fake" media coupled with the dystopian notion of "alternative facts", and the cognitive dissonance that arises when "real" factual reporting contradicts preconceptions. That's hard to overcome.

That addresses media bias for what is presented by that media source, and many seek conformation bias (or, as you put it, “get most of it right most of the time”), but the vast majority of media bias is accomplished by simple omission (what isn’t presented). The NYT likely says it best with their slogan “All the news that’s fit to print”, yet who decides what news is “fit” to be presented and how?

 

[LostInSeattle]

That addresses media bias for what is presented by that media source, and many seek conformation bias (or, as you put it, “get most of it right most of the time”),

Those are totally different things. I judge getting it right retrospectively. That's the opposite of confirmation bias.

but the vast majority of media bias is accomplished by simple omission (what isn’t presented). The NYT likely says it best with their slogan “All the news that’s fit to print”, yet who decides what news is “fit” to be presented and how?

I did acknowledge that in my post:

Every article involves choices - of subject, of focus, of whom to interview, of what to emphasize and what to disregard, even of whether to report it at all.

I agree with you that not reporting something is challenging for the news consumer. You have to bookmark sources that provide information you don't find elsewhere and go back.

What I find interesting is that the thing that annoys me most about (for example) Fox News - their obvious bias - is in fact a helpful signal as to how to calibrate the perspective they provide. Bias in the NYT or WaPo is harder to discern and therefore more tricky to account for.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Those are totally different things. I judge getting it right retrospectively. That's the opposite of confirmation bias.

I did acknowledge that in my post:


I agree with you that not reporting something is challenging for the news consumer. You have to bookmark sources that provide information you don't find elsewhere and go back.

What I find interesting is that the thing that annoys me most about (for example) Fox News - their obvious bias - is in fact a helpful signal as to how to calibrate the perspective they provide. Bias in the NYT or WaPo is harder to discern and therefore more tricky to account for.

That (bolded above) confirms what I had initially said - what makes it “tricky” (harder to discern for you) is that it confirms your bias, while Fox News is obviously biased (to you). A prime example of my point was the media coverage of the ‘border crisis’ between Fox News (covered almost daily) and the NYT or WaPo (covered sparsely and rarely).