Why did I call the website what I named it?
I'm basically just taking the piss out of how anything that isn't widely accepted as the truth by typically mainstream media/ general public/ science is labelled as misinformation or fake news. I just thought it was funny too lol
Why Misinformation should be allowed on the internet
This topic of how I believe "misinformation" should be allowed on the internet is something I'm definitely passionite about as censorship online and in the real world increases. My arguements are would have a flaws to them of course but this is just dot points and ideas and a few paragraphs, my grammar is probaly really bad btw.
Key points, notes and questions
1. Freedom of Expression
2. Freedom of Information
3. Who defines what is and isn’t misinformation.
4. No one has the right to define what misinformation is.
5. The truth can be subjective.
6. The truth can be correct to those who believe it
7. Why is the term “misinformation” increasingly common in today’s media, books and vocabulary in general.
8. Labelling idea and opinions as misinformation discredits non- mainstream beliefs
9. There is no one correct answer.
10. All opinions, values and morals and beliefs has a place in society
11. People have the right to believe what they please without it being removed off the internet or labelled as misinformation and fact checkers coming along and claiming it to be false.
12. Who is funding these fact checkers?
13. Who is removing what is deemed to be misinformation and what are their motives and agenda in doing this.
14. People should be able to decipher for themselves what is true to them, although unfortunately a lot of people need guidance from authorities to make decisions for them.
15. Discourages people to question authority.
- Wouldn’t it seem a bit suspicious if people are labelled as spreaders of misinformation for simply questioning therefore it makes people less inclined to question because they will be labelled as spreaders misinformation or conspiracy theorists.
16. It discourages critical thinking.
- People will believe anything just because the authority has told them so.
- Having multiple answers when searching isn’t flaw or a bug that needs to be fixed yet enables people to have a broader view of the world on certain topics instead of having one set in stone answer while everything else is misinformation.
17. People will get along with each better and people will be more understanding of each other. Instead of labelling one side of the story as misinformation and completely ignoring one side of story and refusing to look deeper and to have an understanding of where people are coming from who don’t share the same views as you. You don’t have to agree with them however you can learn from them instead of going straight to conclusion and people’s subjective opinions as misinformation for having ideas and beliefs outside of the mainstream of society.
18. Having misinformation on the internet will make people more open minded and accepting.
19. By not allowing misinformation on the internet will create a narrow-minded society with only one side of the story been pushed without any room for criticism.
20. A world without what is called misinformation will create a more extremist beliefs when opposing views are removed off the internet. This will create a larger echo chamber of the same ideas reaffirming each other.
21. Who is misinformation a threat to?
22. How to spot misinformation should not be taught in school. I’m all for critical thinking skills should be taught. However, it’s not what it seems to be. More schools are teaching how to spot misinformation/ fake news for instance explain that you should check who created this article and checking the source of this piece of media. Then looking into what were the intentions of this person or organisation, what were they trying to make this person think or do. This is good but schools are taking it too far when they are saying to trust if it’s not approved by the authorities. It’s ok if you personally trust authority but imposing that onto young children with malleable minds is completely wrong. You are just about doing the opposite to teach them when it comes to critical thinking skills by telling to believe it only mindlessly if it’s sourced from media that is only supported or funded by authorities. On the other hand, what should really be happening is people questioning media and people no matter where it’s from, whether it’s sourced from fringe science sites or authority proven articles. People should look at everything and anything from both sides of the narrative and them coming to their come to their own conclusion in what path they will follow. Everything being taught in school is always biased towards at least one side of the story, it may not seem that way when that side you support is being taught which them seems to be the new norm.
23. What happened to scientists encouraging people to question their scientific theories and beliefs so they would have an engaging debate and discussion on proving why their theory is correct and why non-believers are wrong, or if the person who finds flaws in the theory or study the scientist will take that as advice to improve their work and reevaluate their theories.
24. Misinformation is the new hate speech.
25. Misinformation often triggers people’s emotions to get them hooked in and drawn into fake news. This is what has been said by people who are explaining how people fall for misinformation. This also applies to mainstream news, such as the fear mongering headlines about covid-19 is going to end all soon enough if we don’t act now to reduce our carbon emissions. You can see a bit of a double standard between “misinformation” and mainstream media of how people point out how misinformation is intently is using baity emotional headlines to grab people’s attention meanwhile mainstream media is constantly using fear mongering headline to really get people in a state of panic and fear which the same people who point out how mainstream media is just as bad at doing the same thing.
26. Misinformation often repeats it’s self a lot leading people to belief it. It’s psychologically proven that the more something is repeated correlates with the high chance of of people falling for it. This is what people often say when they are explaining how
Should misinformation be allowed on social media? Who and what define as misinformation? What is misinformation exactly? Why has this term been increasingly popular throughout the years and what does this mean? Has there been the increase of what is known as misinformation on social media or has more information been labelled as misinformation? This dictionary definition of misinformation is “false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive”. Although my definition of misinformation is information that is widely known as false by the majority of people, the truth can be subjective in many cases just like people’s beliefs, morals, perspectives and their point of views.
1. Misinformation is subjective. People access information to confirm their beliefs and it’s not up to us to police that. What can influence someone beliefs? Someone’s upbrings they had grown up in. The environment, what were they exposed to as in the earlier stages of their life which shapes them as an adult, media, parental influence, friends, social pressures, religion, culture, past experiences are ways people’s beliefs are created. By saying this someone may believe that the Earth is flat which is widely known false, however this is their belief or what they view as true and to this person the earth being a round sphere-like shape is false to them. People have different morals, views, opinions and perspectives and who is to say they are wrong because they are subjective and those views and opinions are right to those who believe it. Different people have different ideas of what misinformation is, something that is misinformation to one maybe correct to another. Who defines misinformation is also a very big question, since when did people have the right to say whose perspective right or wrong, they don’t.
2. Misinformation is currently controlled by social media and news platforms. How do we know that they can judge information the accuracy of information? However, think about who is in charge of social media platforms who are capable of removing posts they deem as false, what are their intentions this maybe good or bad depending on the situation and your morals. People with good intentions may remove posts which widely known as false on the other hand, what if people with bad intentions start claiming things to be misinformation when it isn’t to censor people. A possibility of this situation could be if someone posts declassified information on this social media platform about how it’s manipulating it’s users into spending more on it’s platform. Then this social media platform removes this post (or purposely makes this post get significantly less views in compared to posts which shines a positive light on this social media platform) in attempt to stop people for seeing what really happens behind the scenes on social media, despite this information was declassified was released to the public so that anyone can view this piece of information. From the perspective of this social media company why wouldn’t they do this because it’s damaging their reputation; this wouldn’t be in the least surprising if this applies to real life, undoubtingly this would happen. This social media could have labelled this post as misinformation or defemination, even if it wasn’t misinformation this situation could happen in many, many instances. This is only one example of the consequences of removing what is so called misinformation.
3. The lack of “misinformation” will decrease critical thinking skills. It will create a narrow-minded society as people can’t make their own decisions on what to believe. Who controls the media controls the mind. If people only consumed media of one perspective of something, it dose influence their thoughts which becomes feeling that turns into speech and creates habits, in simpler words who controls what you view on social media controls you and with wrong intentions this could go very wrong. People should be able to make their own decisions of what believe in rather whatever is mainstream on social media. Always look at both sides of the story, not just the black and white side to something, look into the grey areas of topics as well and then coming to their own conclusion of what they believe in or staying in the grey area, by misinformation being of on social media it teachers people to think for themselves and finding what they truly believe in rather than going with the crowd. If misinformation was abolished from social media, it would create a narrow-minded society if everyone believed the same ideas and concepts and unwilling to explore new ideas. People would get along with each other better if people are exposed to ideas, they don’t agree with so that they can have a better understanding of the perspectives of other so that they are more welcoming to other people and their beliefs.