299

What can we do, as lemmy users, to fight fake news being pushed in the platform? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by YourEmptyWallet@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I see a lot of posts lately, mainly in 'world news' communities, that when I investigate their source, I cannot come to any other conclostion that purposefully spreading of fake news and propaganda on lemmy.

I love this platform and want to see it thrive, but the fact that these kind of posts can so easily populate my feed is disturbing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] RealM@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Personally, I block anything related to news&politics on the fediverse (same on reddit).

Humans have a structural problem with any system that allows voting on the visibility of headlines. It encourages outrage, populism, attention grabbing headlines while discouraging more refined factual discussions. Kinda like tabloid journalism.
Reddit has the same problem and way worse, but with enough time it will happen here too.

Most users read the headline before giving their own opinion, not many take their time to read a majority of other comments and the least amount of users actually read the linked article (which is to be honest also often the fault of the quality of an article, i.e. being too long, boring and partially ai-generated).

This results in the most lukewarm most agreeable opinions being top comments, while they're also oftentimes being uninformed.

This is just what I gathered from my own personal experience with social media, I don't have any good sources to back up my claims.

this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023

299 points (94.4% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26533 readers

1075 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.