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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

This article is a perfect example of the incredibly sloppy and biased thinking that happens in media and which is part of the very problem it talks about.

Fake news first and formost is a clickbait scam to get advertising dollars, NOT a political propaganda approach and this tendency to keep using it as if it's an actual political issue is really absurd and itself an example of what is probably more an example of sloppy news.

Furthermore the insinuation that the older generation somehow is more naive than the young generation in political views only adds to the superficial and naval gazing claims.

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You're not accounting for internal and external to the US attempts to manipulate our democracy via social media. The IRA created fake accounts to encourage tribalism and partisan thinking. It's not new for Americans or companies as well, there's been manipulating the web with bots and disinformation ourselves for years. To say it's purely clickbait is to ignore a large amount of evidence that it's also politically motivated.

I didn't say it's purely clickbait I said it mostly clickbait which it is and the reason why it's being used as much as it is.

>Fake news first and formost is a clickbait scam to get advertising dollars, NOT a political propaganda approach and this tendency to keep using it as if it's an actual political issue is really absurd and itself an example of what is probably more an example of sloppy news.

That's a pretty bold assertion. Let me make sure I'm getting this right. According to you, there is not a problem of people creating and spreading lies in order to forward their political agendas?

That sounds like an absurd proposition from you. We can see it almost every single day, especially on platforms like facebook.

By all means. Please show me this new problem that didn't exist before and please show how this is actually convincing people to change their minds about a subject matter.

There is nothing what so ever that makes "fake news" worse than your or mine self-delusional idea of what is true ESPECIALLY in politics which has nothing to do with truth but perspective.

The actual problems with social media platforms like FB and Instagram etc are depression not one group of people living in an echo chamber more than others.

Yes "fake news" can spread faster but so can rebuttals and "real news".

You're completely delusional if you believe this.

If I believe what exactly?

There is some empirical evidence to suggest that younger generations are better at sussing out opinion vs fact than older generations. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/older...

My own pet hypothesis for the larger phenomenon discussed here is this: Younger generations had schooling that attempted to make them "college ready" and part of that college readiness was understanding how to find and cite credible sources, alongside understanding what a "primary source" is. Sure, it didn't stick with everyone, but I do think bits-and-pieces of that are imprinted on Millennials.

Along with that you have many younger people doing white collar "knowledge work" which often involves compiling and synthesizing information from multiple sources and drawing a conclusion. This understanding of "how the sausage is made" carries into media literacy when say, examining an editorial for factual accuracy.

Some evidence of what though? What is the actual consequence? This is exactly the problem i have with that articles claims. Not a single attempt at digging in just a rush to make it about Trump. There is zero evidence that them spreading more fake news have any actual measurable effect beyond the fact that they spread more. Thats not how conclusions are made like those the articly tries to make.

The article I linked talks about a study that has nothing to do with Trump. It just happens to show that older Americans have a harder time telling apart opinion from factual statements. It makes no claim towards conservatives vs liberals.

But if you’re talking about the original article: if older Americans are more likely to spread fake news, and older Americans are more likely to be conservative, it stands to reason that most of the fake news being spread would skew conservative. It’s a function of the audience’s age as opposed to their politics.

I’m sure if you zero’d in on fake news spread by people under 40 it would skew left.

Thats not evidence of anything though.

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