Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.22-053931/https://www.ft.com/content/bbc80e1c-60a7-4f3d-a9a1-a4e68cf36912
In the past, established media organisations largely followed the same news agenda, within national boundaries. But in an increasingly borderless and splintered information environment, the old gatekeepers and norms are increasingly bypassed.
This has led to the ongoing bifurcation of publishing platforms online, including social media, into overtly right- and left-leaning spaces, where different agendas abound. As a dual citizen of X and Bluesky, there are clear differences in the topics I see on the two platforms.
Here’s another weakness of the misinformation discourse: that this is uniquely a problem on one “side”. Research finds that while America’s conservatives are on average more likely to believe false statements about climate change, liberals are more likely to believe false statements about nuclear power. Other studies of the US find those who went to college are no better judges of news veracity than those with only high school education.
I don’t highlight this to criticise any particular group. Quite the contrary. I do so to emphasise that most people — left, right, more and less educated — simply don’t interrogate every claim they encounter.
Humans are efficiency-maximisers, seeking shortcuts at every opportunity. The truth is the vast majority of us are never going to invest time fact-checking or evaluating all the information we consume. If it seems plausible and comes from a source we don’t actively distrust, that’s good enough.
I was trying to illustrate that filtering out (mis/dis)information it is not only important for your mental health, but also from an epistemological standpoint. All good epistemological systems (science, fair and accurate journalism, etc.) filter out/exclude a lot of point of views. I agree, there is no central arbitor of truth, that’s why good epistemological systems are doubly important.
If your process of finding knowledge isn’t based on good epistemological systems, you will drown in the pool of noise that you get from just listening to people around you. But if your epistemological approach is sound, then yes, interacting with a lot of people will make you understand the world better.
You’re still on about factuality and finding truth as if that is going to solve the issue of antivaxxers. In the end you’re right but what are you really achieving? Did that make people take vaccines? Seems like that’s still declining so I’m talking about keeping societies functional by addressing underlying reasons for why we deal with antivaxxers at all.
Having knowledgeable researchers that can help produce vaccines, and having at least a part of the population be knowledgeable enough to make sane decisions about their healthcare…
It’s a prerequisite to solving ”the antivaxxer issue”, though not sufficient.
Did I get it right that you think that the masses don’t take vaccines because they are dumb?
I think the masses, by and large, are still taking vaccines. The ones who don’t are stuck in epistemic systems that amplify noise (social media, conspiracy theory groups, right wing cults etc.).
I seem to be doing a poor job at making my point here. Hope you appreciated the conversation regardless.