“… Those Who Seek It Out…”

The false narrative behind our obsession with mis/disinformation.

Here is a new article from Wharton:

What Public Discourse Gets Wrong about Social Media Misinformation

Here is a screenshot from said article that seems relevant:

I would largely agree with this. “Those who seek it out” are the majority of people who find ridiculous content from Patriot-Eagle-dot-RU and Multi-Gender-Take-It-Back.edu. We love to blame phones and algorithms and “big tech” for everything, even though the reality of modern existence is that most people have no idea how tech works, and honestly in most small talk conversations you’ll hear someone tell you that some pair of shoes they saw on Instagram followed them to another website, which is a technique (“re-marketing”) that has been around since about 2011 and average people are just figuring out. Most people are not that smart, or tech-savvy, despite claiming to be. My former father-in-law (first marriage) used…