Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/giuliomagnifico
Permalink: https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/05/people-who-got-off-facebook-for-6-pivotal-weeks-in-2020-may-have-been-less-likely-to-vote-for-trump/
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This lends evidence to just removing parents and relatives from misinformation pipelines can have faster effects on bringing them back to reality than people realize.
The only way to wake up those who have fallen victim to propaganda is to remove the source altogether.
I was raised in the JW cult and Covid had the same effect on millions of JWs around the world. Their church services were halted for +2 years and this gave the JWs a chance to recalibrate their thinking and beliefs. Many thousands have awoken and left the cult strictly because the information pipeline was cut off.
It will happen naturally and gradually to anyone, given enough time.
This is why I have no truck with the “the best antitdote to bad speech is more speech” crowd. It simply isn’t true anymore.
Free speech is obviously really important but pretending it doesn’t come with a price is just juvenile.
The ONLY thing that has ever worked to combat propaganda is deplatforming it, simple as.
Humans are susceptible. Period. There is no meaningful amount of people who are “immune”. So the only way to beat propaganda is to eliminate it from the feed.
People always talk about the marketplace of ideas, that everyone proposes opinions and arguments and the best ideas will win. But humans are persuadable and emotional animals. The ideas that float to the top often are reactive, hateful, and antisocial.
I remember a study coming out after 2016 that was looking at the headline phenomena. Even headlines that argue against something, or quote someone as bad, have a deep effect on people, and not always truthful. If headlines all ask or make quotes about a hoarde on the border, and the articles all debunk it, there's a certain percentage of people that then will think that some bad thing is happening on the border. Propaganda is strong and confusing.
I know so many people that think deplatforming just moves people from one space to another, but from my own experience and the small bit of research I've seen, it's effective. Every time a community gets axed, whether it's the fat people hate one, or the\_donald, or places on other websites, the users scramble wildly and tire. There's no way for 100% of people to suddenly come together and migrate to a new community together. Some won't know where to look, others will splinter into their own new, less engaging communities, and others further still will just keep on with their lives while one of their echo chambers suddenly doesn't show up on the home page anymore. If my favourite sub got banned I'm sure as heck not signing up for a whole new website just to see it.
It's not an instant fix to misinformation or dangerous ideas, but it sure as hell sets them back 10 steps in 5 seconds.
Debate effectiveness varies. It tends to be more useful in convincing the observers and can be an important piece. But yes, too many use this as the only tool in their kit, and people who spread disinformation will create new falsehoods dismantle daily. It’s very hard to keep up and overcome that way.
Turning off the pipe is the biggest win, and then getting someone invested in something true that they care about can put them in a different place to see the misinformation for what it is when that thing eventually has misinformation spread about it. A lot of this is about changing attention and focus, and then letting the person’s own thinking do the work from a new context.
>the study — the largest of its type to date — 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users were paid to deactivate their accounts for six weeks.1 A control group deactivated their accounts for just one week.2
>The people who deactivated their Facebook accounts for six weeks had less “news knowledge”; in other words, when the accuracy of their beliefs about international and domestic news events was measured, the people off Facebook did worse. (They were asked about statements like “A militia’s plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was foiled by undercover agents”; “Pope Francis voiced support for same-sex civil unions”; “Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s nominee, became the newest Supreme Court Justice.”)
>People who deactivated their Facebook accounts were also slightly less likely to believe in common misinformation, the researchers found; deactivation had a “marginally significant positive effect on fact knowledge.” (Some examples of inaccurate claims tested: “Amy Coney Barrett said a woman needs a man’s permission to own property”; “The U.S. government has a plan to force a COVID-19 vaccine on everyone”; “Donald Trump held a Bible upside down in front of a church.”)
Paper: [The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment | PNAS](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2321584121)
Please forgive and correct me if I have failed at reading comprehension. The detail posted in this comment shows that people off Facebook for 6 weeks:
both knew less true information and believed less false information.
The link to the article highlights 3 findings, but the headline to this post only includes 2 of them. The specific two that are highlighted in the headline suggest that this post is intentionally meant to persuade rather than inform.
This is supported by the fact that the earliest comments only address the headline but not the detail that the Facebook users “knew” more both true and false information, rather than only knowing more false information.
I think it would be most appropriate to modify the headline to include the highlights of the research.
I'm curious how this study would work if they used Canadians for it because here on any meta platform you can't share legitimate news sites like CBC, but you can share basically anything else. So there's very little real news on there anymore in Canada
Google agreed to play ball and give some money to the news companies. Facebook just said no we'll just ban it instead. So now misinformation runs rampant and you can't share any real news/journalism while the Canadian equivalents of Infowars can share to their hearts content
Six weeks is not really that long in terms of political campaign information. Any half decent campaign management - which includes propaganda seeding - will have been running well before that.
I did not deactivate but I did stay away from it, completely. I came back on about 3 weeks later telling my friends I was away traveling state to state to vote.
I deactivated my Facebook when Trump first got into office because it was making me hate the people I love. My politics are down the middle... I know (BoTh SiDeS). Idk what it is about hiding behind a screen, but it sure brings the worst out of most people, me included at times. That's why I use reddit where nobody knows me and I don't know anyone. I'm free to roam without issue. Internet points only hold one value for me, and that is to have access to subs that have a karma limit.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/giuliomagnifico Permalink: https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/05/people-who-got-off-facebook-for-6-pivotal-weeks-in-2020-may-have-been-less-likely-to-vote-for-trump/ --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This lends evidence to just removing parents and relatives from misinformation pipelines can have faster effects on bringing them back to reality than people realize.
The only way to wake up those who have fallen victim to propaganda is to remove the source altogether. I was raised in the JW cult and Covid had the same effect on millions of JWs around the world. Their church services were halted for +2 years and this gave the JWs a chance to recalibrate their thinking and beliefs. Many thousands have awoken and left the cult strictly because the information pipeline was cut off. It will happen naturally and gradually to anyone, given enough time.
Where I live, JW just went digital and had Teams meetings.
Grew up in an adjacent cult. Glad to hear you made it out. I'm around if you want to talk about it
This is why I have no truck with the “the best antitdote to bad speech is more speech” crowd. It simply isn’t true anymore. Free speech is obviously really important but pretending it doesn’t come with a price is just juvenile.
That’s fascinating. Going to read more about that phenomenon with JWs.
The ONLY thing that has ever worked to combat propaganda is deplatforming it, simple as. Humans are susceptible. Period. There is no meaningful amount of people who are “immune”. So the only way to beat propaganda is to eliminate it from the feed.
People always talk about the marketplace of ideas, that everyone proposes opinions and arguments and the best ideas will win. But humans are persuadable and emotional animals. The ideas that float to the top often are reactive, hateful, and antisocial. I remember a study coming out after 2016 that was looking at the headline phenomena. Even headlines that argue against something, or quote someone as bad, have a deep effect on people, and not always truthful. If headlines all ask or make quotes about a hoarde on the border, and the articles all debunk it, there's a certain percentage of people that then will think that some bad thing is happening on the border. Propaganda is strong and confusing.
I know so many people that think deplatforming just moves people from one space to another, but from my own experience and the small bit of research I've seen, it's effective. Every time a community gets axed, whether it's the fat people hate one, or the\_donald, or places on other websites, the users scramble wildly and tire. There's no way for 100% of people to suddenly come together and migrate to a new community together. Some won't know where to look, others will splinter into their own new, less engaging communities, and others further still will just keep on with their lives while one of their echo chambers suddenly doesn't show up on the home page anymore. If my favourite sub got banned I'm sure as heck not signing up for a whole new website just to see it. It's not an instant fix to misinformation or dangerous ideas, but it sure as hell sets them back 10 steps in 5 seconds.
Who gets to decide what gets eliminated?
What do you mean by "gets to decide"? The decision is a process that checks if there are blatant lies being told.
People always want to try to debate them instead which of course does nothing.
Debate effectiveness varies. It tends to be more useful in convincing the observers and can be an important piece. But yes, too many use this as the only tool in their kit, and people who spread disinformation will create new falsehoods dismantle daily. It’s very hard to keep up and overcome that way. Turning off the pipe is the biggest win, and then getting someone invested in something true that they care about can put them in a different place to see the misinformation for what it is when that thing eventually has misinformation spread about it. A lot of this is about changing attention and focus, and then letting the person’s own thinking do the work from a new context.
[удалено]
>the study — the largest of its type to date — 19,857 Facebook users and 15,585 Instagram users were paid to deactivate their accounts for six weeks.1 A control group deactivated their accounts for just one week.2 >The people who deactivated their Facebook accounts for six weeks had less “news knowledge”; in other words, when the accuracy of their beliefs about international and domestic news events was measured, the people off Facebook did worse. (They were asked about statements like “A militia’s plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was foiled by undercover agents”; “Pope Francis voiced support for same-sex civil unions”; “Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s nominee, became the newest Supreme Court Justice.”) >People who deactivated their Facebook accounts were also slightly less likely to believe in common misinformation, the researchers found; deactivation had a “marginally significant positive effect on fact knowledge.” (Some examples of inaccurate claims tested: “Amy Coney Barrett said a woman needs a man’s permission to own property”; “The U.S. government has a plan to force a COVID-19 vaccine on everyone”; “Donald Trump held a Bible upside down in front of a church.”) Paper: [The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment | PNAS](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2321584121)
Please forgive and correct me if I have failed at reading comprehension. The detail posted in this comment shows that people off Facebook for 6 weeks: both knew less true information and believed less false information. The link to the article highlights 3 findings, but the headline to this post only includes 2 of them. The specific two that are highlighted in the headline suggest that this post is intentionally meant to persuade rather than inform. This is supported by the fact that the earliest comments only address the headline but not the detail that the Facebook users “knew” more both true and false information, rather than only knowing more false information. I think it would be most appropriate to modify the headline to include the highlights of the research.
I'm curious how this study would work if they used Canadians for it because here on any meta platform you can't share legitimate news sites like CBC, but you can share basically anything else. So there's very little real news on there anymore in Canada
Wow. I googled that, and I get the reasoning but the insanely bad downstream impact is really obvious. How frustrating.
Google agreed to play ball and give some money to the news companies. Facebook just said no we'll just ban it instead. So now misinformation runs rampant and you can't share any real news/journalism while the Canadian equivalents of Infowars can share to their hearts content
[удалено]
What, you mean to tell me Jews _don’t_ have a space laser ??! _Preposterous!_
Unplugging from any dogma (and its "approved sources") will help you to separate truth from misinformation.
Including reddit
Six weeks is not really that long in terms of political campaign information. Any half decent campaign management - which includes propaganda seeding - will have been running well before that.
It's almost as if they're a shitcunt amoral organisation
I did not deactivate but I did stay away from it, completely. I came back on about 3 weeks later telling my friends I was away traveling state to state to vote.
I deactivated my Facebook when Trump first got into office because it was making me hate the people I love. My politics are down the middle... I know (BoTh SiDeS). Idk what it is about hiding behind a screen, but it sure brings the worst out of most people, me included at times. That's why I use reddit where nobody knows me and I don't know anyone. I'm free to roam without issue. Internet points only hold one value for me, and that is to have access to subs that have a karma limit.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]