The scourge of fake news
A video is altered to include a child cursing the First Lady
Earlier this week, Pres. Biden, Vice Pres. Harris, and First Lady Jill Biden hosted a reception to celebrate Diwali, a major religious festival in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, that in general, celebrates light over darkness. Here is a longer explanation.
The First Lady spoke during the reception, and you can watch her here.
But on social media, a video was shared that had been altered to include a child yelling, “Shut the fuck up,” to interrupt Jill Biden. The video was fake, it wasn’t even that well done, but it got traction, anyway. As we’ve known for a while, fake tweets spread faster than truthful ones. A 2018 MIT study found that it’s not bots, but people who do the most damage:
…false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories are. It also takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people. When it comes to Twitter’s “cascades,” or unbroken retweet chains, falsehoods reach a cascade depth of 10 about 20 times faster than facts. And falsehoods are retweeted by unique users more broadly than true statements at every depth of cascade.
In this, the stupidest part of the campaign season, it’s important that we call out the nonsense, and for God’s sake, not share it. Diwali is a colorful and beautiful holiday, and let’s not let that get lost in this nonsense.
I wonder if nasty fake news would travel faster than kind fake news (if it were a thing). I'm guessing it would and that says something about those who are attracted to nasty fake news and spread it. Some spread it even if they know it's fake. One time I provided proof of false info to one of those people and her response was, I don't care - I still like the message. And so there you have it. Fake or true isn't the point in their sharing; the message says or shows what they want said or done. They share their anger, their bigotry, their hate. And apparently it ignites others rapidly. We've got another type of wildfire problem with plenty of accelerant and ready tinder. There aren't enough firefighting tools to extinguish it as long as there is way for things to spread.
Our neighbor puts lights up every year to celebrate Diwali and I see them twinkling through the night from my window. It's a beautiful holiday to celebrate light over darkness - good over evil.
Tangentially, there's this regularity of people being supposed to be shamed by how some asshole treats them. It isn't just expected by the asshole, but by people who oppose the asshole.
And it's a regularity that shouldn't exist.