Submitted 1 year ago by HipPriest@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.wired.com/story/x-israel-hamas-war-disinformation/
People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.
If you’re getting your information from facebook, twitter or fox news (to name a few top offenders) you’re in for a bad time.
And if a significant enough portion of the people are getting their information from those sources, we’re all in for a bad time.
More like: we’re all in for a bad time.
Unfortunately, their inability to discern fantasy from reality does not only affect them.
Sometimes, the fantasy is presented in a credible manner. That’s the hook.
I think another big issue is that there are a lot of news outlets that get their info from those three sources.
Let’s add Reddit to that list too.
When Bank of America announced 0% downpayment loans for people with living in red lined communities with an abnormally low home value. Reddit was flooded with posts saying “BoA is giving better loans to black people” completely ignoring that the loans had no race qualifications. All it takes is one poorly summarized post and the whole site starts screaming nonsense.
Hard enough to get unbiased reporting at the best of times.
Every media outlet picked sides on this a long time ago.
That’s not a fair assessment. A lot of news outlets get their info from social media like Twitter so, even if you’re not getting it directly from there, it’s very likely that you’re still getting information from there.
X is a far-right nazi sympathizing website. Advertisers should have pulled their products a year ago
Assume companies that advertise on Xitter to be NAZI sympathizers.
Xitler the X is pronounced like “sh”
Breaking news: people who get their news from social media are idiots.
There are some good sources on YouTube like Crash Course. The problem is when people get their information from posts or channels that are not peer reviewed.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I didn’t mean that there isn’t any good information on social media. I have spent a bunch of time watching video lectures that MITOpenCourseWare has posted on youtube.
Using social media sites as a news aggregator is like looking at the news through a filter. I think that is bad because you don’t know how the filter works and you don’t control the filter.
People who have turned to X for breaking news
Maybe they shouldn’t
One of the few benefits that Twitter used to have was how useful it was for breaking news and events.
Yeah, it was very useful at getting hot takes, misinformation, sensationalist and outsourced soundbites. It still useful for that, but now there is more unchecked nazism.
At this point the Onion has more accurate news than X
They have always had more accurate news than the mainstream media, they just have a roundabout way of giving it.
X is the new toilet of the internet. Go X yourself
Don’t you mean, go xit yourself.
In fairness… People who turn to twitter for news aren’t the type of people that generally like to be informed by reality.
Honestly I blame the news orgs for this.
There are a ton of videos floating around that ARE credible. They simply aren’t getting reported on in a meaningful way. If they do get mentioned, it’s often in an extremely watered down manner that almost feels intentionally misleading.
You also have videos that are 100 percent verifiable (or the protest videos) that are only being reported on by a few organizations, often leaving out important context.
If the mainstream media refuses to truly engage in the situation, then people will turn to dubious sources.
I mean, that’s just the other side of the same coin. They need good info to dig through, and they need to acrhally dig. Both are required for actual journalism, and both don’t work under capitalism. There’s too much money in lies, and it’s expensive to fight them in the first place.
Stay away from that echo chamber
It certainly ecame worse, but it’s not like it was good before him.
Of course, it’s by design.
If you went to Twitter pre-Musk for your news you’re still a moron.
It was the social media of choice for journalists. It was an excellent place to get your news as long as you followed the right people (reputable, credible professionals).
Now many of those right people have left and they’re far more difficult to distinguish from the wrong people.
Agreed. I didn’t use Twitter, but friends followed NPR correspondents for information and, while it didn’t replace the news, it enhanced it for them.
It actually had some credibility before. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it did have some credibility. Not so much now.
I disagree with the headline, the war is not causing disinformation. Its bad faith users posting disinformation and ~~X’s ~~ (nope still calling it Twitter) policies that not only let it happen but encourage it.
I go with Xitter, or “porn site X.com.”
It took me a hot minute to realise that they were talking about Twitter, lmao.
I’ve been wondering when pages would drop the “formerly Twitter” clarifier.
From the article:
But users of X (formerly Twitter)
Not yet.
Yeah, it kind of looks like the author of the article forgot to fill in their placeholder during proofreading.
HBO destroyed their brand with Max", and Elon was like “hold my beer, I’ll make the single dumbest and miso confusing brand decision in the history of business.”
Imagine clicking on a video thinking it’s footage of current events and it’s from a game.
Imagine not being at all media-savvy and buying into it. MAGA types are idiot shitheads who are completely driven by their emotions. There’s no higher function.
Who are these articles for because everyone I know has always had the opinion that Twitter is full of dumb takes and misinfo
Millions and millions of people who are still using it as their primary info source.
Good that you apparently don't know any of them, but the number of people who actually stopped using TwitX or use it less appears to be shockingly small.
Yeah unfortunately my friends use tiktok as their primary source so I can’t give them to much credit.
This one is important. There is a significance to a platform that posts breaking news becoming a pool of disinformation. I admit there are other Musk posts that are unneeded, but this one is necessary to document and archive his problem and Twitter’s as well.
This is about misinformation on social media plays a part in war and journalism
Oh no, please tell me this isn’t true. Surely the well balanced and entirely rational Mr. Musk wouldn’t let this happen?
I wonder how long people are going to keep calling it X
Twitter or shitter don’t help this baby claim a precious letter
Why is this company not shut down and dissolved. It’s a clear and oresent danger to national security.
@IHawkMike English14•
There was speculation a few days ago that the institutional lenders that still hold stock may try and seize ownership before Elon continues to send it’s value to zero
Fascinating, I had not heard that. IS there any realistic chance of that happening? Is it even possible? I don’t know the ownership distribution.
Oh no! Poor X. crying emoji
The site has tons of it.
Sabre363@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Maybe it’s not a good idea to use a media platform run by a megalomaniac moron as a primary source of news and information.
grue@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Image
ours@lemmy.film 1 year ago
The one with a rocket program. Oh wait…
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
It’s a great timeline … 99% of the planet relies on megalomaniac morons, mega corporations, billionaires and for profit media corporations for all their information.
And we wonder why there is so much misinformation, disinformation, non information and covered up information everywhere.
It’s definitely the information age … expect no one said it would actually keep us informed or have any benefit to humanity.
foggy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Same as it ever was
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh no, it’s DEFINITELY the informarion age. The truth is out there.
There’s just no money to be made with hard work and actual journalism.
pastabatman@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Fair, but this article is talking about primary information from people who are actually there and small local news outlets being drowned out by misinformation. A lot of primary information in 2023 comes from social media which is then investigated and fact checked by larger and more reputable news outlets before being reported.
So yes, the average person who just wants to know what’s happening should not be getting that info from social media but reporters often have to. Changes to Twitter since musk took over (specifically paid blue check marks and the removal of titles from links) have made the process of sifting through the misinformation and disinformation exponentially harder, even for people who do it for a living like the researcher in the article.
phx@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
It’s not just TwitX, there’s a bunch on Lemmy and Reddit feeds too
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
At this point Hexbear is essentially co-opted by astroturfing terrorists
mykneedoesnthurt@kbin.social 1 year ago
The greatest moron in the world.
theodewere@kbin.social 1 year ago
as long as he's #1 in your thoughts, he can sleep.. a kind of sleep anyway..