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YouTube To Blame For Rise in Flat Earth Believers, Says Study (cnet.com)
According to research, almost everyone who believes in flat Earth theory got started on YouTube. From a report: Asheley Landrum is an assistant professor of science communication at Texas Tech University. Her focus: how cultural values affect our understanding of science. Most recently she's been looking at the rise of flat Earth theory. Incredibly, more people than ever believe in a flat Earth. Google searches for "flat earth" have grown massively over the past five years and flat Earth conventions have begun popping up all over the globe. That's where Landrum focused her research. Landrum interviewed 30 people who attended one flat Earth convention and found that all but one became flat Earthers after watching videos on YouTube.
She presented her research at an event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While Landrum didn't explicitly blame YouTube for the rise in flat Earth believers, she does believe that Google could be doing more to stop the spread of scientifically incorrect ideas. "There's a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation," she said, as reported by The Guardian. "Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it."
She presented her research at an event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While Landrum didn't explicitly blame YouTube for the rise in flat Earth believers, she does believe that Google could be doing more to stop the spread of scientifically incorrect ideas. "There's a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation," she said, as reported by The Guardian. "Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it."
A lot of the flat earthers I've met are really just trolling other people.
If the number of "believers" is going up then it might be that the number of critical thinkers is going up.
On the other hand it could also be that I don't hang round with the other end of the spectrum and it really is the number of idiots that's going online to confirm their beliefs that's going up.
No sig today...
I don't think these people really believe in a flat Earth.
They do it because it pisses off the "critical thinker/debunker" and "academic" types. They're very easy targets for something like this because they know they'll get a reaction (and don't understand they're being trolled).
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it!
--Agent K, MiB
Or, as I tend to put it, the collective IQ of a group can be determined by taking the IQ of the biggest idiot and dividing by the number of feet.
The only thing the internet changed was that no loonie is alone anymore. Before the internet, anyone who had some batshit crazy outlook on life got a pretty quick reality check when his tinfoil hattery hit the reality of the rest of the world around him. Now it's easier than ever to find others who believe the same bullshit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
YouTube is not to blame for people believing that the world is flat. There are many posts that argue both sides, so if a person watched and listened to both sides of the argument, then they could formulate their own opinion. The problem is that people tend to sway to things they already believe in, and support their ideology, so they are typically getting only one side of the argument; thus, it reinforces what they already want to believe. YouTube is to blame for this, like a spoon is to blame for making me fat.
YouTube To Blame For Rise in Flat Earth Believers, Says Study
While Landrum didn't explicitly blame YouTube for the rise in flat Earth believers
When your headline is so inaccurate that it is contradicted right in the summary...
Better known as 318230.
A critical thinker has to be able to do both: list the pro- and the counter-arguments and weigh them against each other.
That's all fine and dandy. But nothing in your post actually defines critical thinking. The keyword here is critical. Which is not about making up lists of arguments and explanations - anybody can do that. Its about judging the quality of those arguments. Which for most people means evaluating the source of the argument, the qualifications and trustworthiness of the people making the arguments as well as things like logical consistency (of both the argument and the people making the argument). The fact is, truth is NOT self-evident and anyone who tells you that probably doesn't want you to critically evaluate them.
99% of the time we are not experts in the topics being debated, so we are left with critical evaluations of arguments based on external factors. Understanding how and why we evaluate those factors is central to critical thinking.
Media literacy, in particular, is a key component of critical thinking in the internet era. The reason youtube is causing a rise in people believing in conspiracy theories like a flat-earth is because youtube is designed to maximize "engagement" and conspiracy theories are like crack for the unsophisticated - especially those who feel dis-empowered in their lives (and who doesn't feel that way at least some times?) So youtube's algorithms reward ($$$) people who make conspiracy theory videos, which induces the creation of even more conspiracy theory videos.
In other words, the people making videos for youtube have strong incentives to be manipulative and completely dishonest because that's what youtube's algorithm rewards. The people consuming those videos aren't thinking about how those rewards degrade the trustworthiness of the video makers. Fundamentally its all a grift. A billion dollar grift. Its also the same business model as talk radio which has been lucrative AF for grifters too.
This is not just a "you tube" problem, we've entered a period of anti-intellectual tribalism. It's not just "flat eathers", we have an increase in "climate change deniers", Washington State declared a measles emergency - from anti-vaxers.. We have FauxNoise, Breitbart and Alex Jones constantly spouting "conspiracy" and "deep state" nonsense. Scientists are vilified and personally attacked - . Many can no longer differentiate what they like or what the tribe mentality is vs VS fact and truth.
Actually dissecting which parts of mainstream knowledge is true (for a workable version of true) and which are not, is tedious work, and no single person will manage it during their lifetime completely.