Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Prove That Truth is No Match For Fiction on Twitter (theguardian.com)
Researchers find fake news reaches users up to 20 times faster than factual content -- and real users are more likely to spread it than bots. From a report: "Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it," wrote Jonathan Swift in 1710. Now a group of scientists say they have found evidence Swift was right -- at least when it comes to Twitter. In the paper, published in the journal Science, three MIT researchers describe an analysis of a vast amount of Twitter data: more than 125,000 stories, tweeted more than 4.5 million times in total, all categorised as being true or false by at least one of six independent fact-checking organisations. The findings make for unhappy reading. "Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information," they write, "and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends or financial information."
How much further? "Whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1,000 people, the top 1% of false-news cascades routinely diffused to between 1,000 and 100,000 people," they write. In other words, true facts don't get retweeted, while too-good-to-be-true claims are viral gold. How much faster? "It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people, and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10" -- meaning that it was retweeted 10 times sequentially (so, for example, B reads A's feed and retweets a tweet, and C then reads B's feed and retweets the same tweet, all the way to J).
How much further? "Whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1,000 people, the top 1% of false-news cascades routinely diffused to between 1,000 and 100,000 people," they write. In other words, true facts don't get retweeted, while too-good-to-be-true claims are viral gold. How much faster? "It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people, and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach a cascade depth of 10" -- meaning that it was retweeted 10 times sequentially (so, for example, B reads A's feed and retweets a tweet, and C then reads B's feed and retweets the same tweet, all the way to J).
Wow, praising CNN?
I remember when the report about Russian meddling first came out a month or two ago.
Both Fox and CBS (the only two others that I checked) included the fact that the Russians appeared to also support Bernie. CNN, for whatever reason, chose to omit this fact.
Then there was that time when CNN reported a Trump e-mail as being from September 4th instead of September 14th, which took the story from "Illegal" to "who cares." Yes, they had to correct it, but the damage was done.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/0...
Then, there was the time that CNN had to "insert" a word into one of Trump's quotes in order to make him seem racist. Yeah, that is the height of honesty.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...
But if you believe their bias, then you don't see it as a bias.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
CNN and facts? Ha haa...
Guess what? The guy who most prominently screams FAKE NEWS at CNN is occasionally inaccurate himself. I can help with a couple of examples if you don't believe me. CNN, and especially cnn.com where I access their stories, has an excellent track record of getting the facts straight.
Back your shit up. Link me to a cnn.com story that gets the facts wrong. Or point me to a story where they made a mistake and doubled-down when corrected instead of retracting. You might start your search here.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Mark Hertling is an activist with an agenda yet they do not mention this (#vetsforgunreform). He maybe experienced being in the military but he is pushing a particular agenda and purposefully obfuscates information to push that agenda. As demonstrated by the poor handling and mentor-ship of the CNN presenter (seriously that opening with the guy flaccidly shooting the gun is ridiculous under that kind of mentor).
Blurs the line between civilian and military weapons. That is what they are doing when they talk about the looks and appearance. If I put spoiler on my car, racing stripes, and racing numbers does that make it a race car? Yet, black plastic is supposed to be more dangerous like the M-4?
In the 1950's Colt did market the AR-15 to the military which was a basis for the M4 but that doesn't mean the rifles are the same nor does it mean that their looks mean they functionally the same. The AR-15 is just like any number of civilian semi-automatic rifles.
"a defining characteristic of the AR-15 is the speed and power of the bullet." .. Absolute non-sense. the speed and power of the bullet are defining characteristics of the bullet, not the rifle. Any rifle with that caliber will have the same speed and power regardless what it looks like. You can get most gun models in different calibers.
@1:05 "now those are single shots. If I wanted to fire this on full semi-automatic all I do is keep firing.". There is no such thing as "full semi-automatic". All he means is that he is pulling the trigger faster. 1 trigger pull == 1 bullet. Any semi-automatic can be fired faster if you pull the trigger faster. There is only one firing mode the AR-15 has. His "switching" is him operating the weapon differently. Semi-automatic. "Full semi-automatic" is a blatant misinformation designed to misinform laymen.
"this weapon in the wrong hands can be more dangerous than most weapons because of its capability to do a lot of damage in a short period of time and is irreversible". Why? Because he can pull the trigger faster? Because it looks scary? Because of the bullet it shoots? It isn't more dangerous than any other semi automatic gun in the market. Name a gun whose damage can be reversed. Name a gun that is semi automatic that can't fire faster if you pull the trigger faster. The AR-15 isn't unique or special from any other weapon. Not the caliber of bullet. Not the speed at which you can fire it. Not the damage it can do. That is nature for every gun for every caliber ever made.
I have to wonder if it is stupidity or malice that they got so much wrong in a 2 minute segment. They are pushing an agenda using misinformation and ignorance.