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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...
..over the globe"
We all saw what you did there.
No. They are quite real, and it has nothing to do with anyone but their own personal need for a flat earth. There is a major conference of them held periodically near me, and I had to go see what was up. It seems to be primarily a religious thing actually. These people really just can't handle the idea of a large, cold, arbitrary, and uncaring universe that they are simply not in the center of. They MUST believe in the flat earth, because no matter who you talked to or how byzantine and strained the rationalizations, it all came back to - in their minds - proof of God. Of a master plan, of the comfort of an ordered universe, one in which we have a defined purpose for being here, and that it was all put here for us. That's what a flat earth means to them. It was really that simple. Its not trolling, its existential fear.
The Earth is flat from the point of view of the 4th spatial dimension. Flat-Earthers are actually cosmic horrors possessing the weak-minded.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
There are definitely trolls in the flat-earth community and I am pretty convinced that the majority of the 'famous' flat-earthers on Youtube are only doing it for the money. They are scam artists and their target is the myriad of scientifically illiterate people who genuinely believe their crap. Look at all the people who believe in unscientific ideas such as astrology, homeopathy, spiritism, power of crystals, ancient hidden civilizations, ... Add to that the bronze age cosmologies described by the holy books of most religions and you have the perfect environment to bring people to the border of the rabbit hole. Once they are there, Youtube provides the final kick to fall in the hole.
An important factor is the recent resurgence of creationism in the US and in most areas of the world where religious fundamentalists are thriving. Initially, the creationist movement was only targeting the Evolution Theory but all sciences are connected:
- The old ages of Earth and of the Universe are confirmed by Geology, Astrophysics, and Nuclear Physics (i.e. via Radiometric dating) so those sciences MUST be wrong.
- The common ancestry of all life forms is confirmed by DNA analysis, Paleontology and Anatomy so those sciences MUST be wrong.
- The Noah Flood is disproved by History, Geology, Climatology, DNA analysis so those sciences MUST be wrong.
- etc
The end result is that a fundamentalist preacher has no other choices than to denigrate all modern sciences to justify his bronze age beliefs.
Youtube and other social networks are not the cause of irrational beliefs but they provide a good environment to amplify them.
There is actually two kinds. Just like with religion. The ones that really, really, REALLY try hard to believe it and at least convinced themselves, and now want to convince someone else to strengthen their faith so they don't "fall". To them it's quite a bit of a religious thing, and more often than not you'll notice that they follow some other religion and think that their holy book kinda "demands" that the world is flat, so they have to believe in a flat earth or their holy book could maybe be wrong, and that MUST NOT be.
And then of course there's the snakeoil peddlers that noticed that the former group is a welcome source of income.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
All over the disc, that is. I wonder if their compasses have directions named H (Hubwards), T (Turnwise), R (Rimwards) and W (widdershins) as well.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
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.
"Nobody can possibly be this dumb, they must be trolling" is a common trap to fall in. Sad fact is, there are more actual morons than there are trolls willing to act as morons.
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.
Several articles now have talked about how youtube is feeding various undesirable ideas. I suspect this will be followed by calls for censorship.
I'm the last person to argue that the earth is flat since all evidence is to the contrary but I also think that there are concerns over free speech and that "she does believe that Google could be doing more to stop the spread of scientifically incorrect ideas" she thinks google should do something to suppress idea's or beliefs and that in and of itself should be cause for concern. There are a lot of conflicts between what some people believe and what science says, the anti-vax movement is such a instance with plenty of scientific study's saying vaccinations don't cause autism but there also appears to be plenty of anecdotal evidence saying the opposite. I find it very dangerous to even consider giving a company like google the power to suppress idea's or to try and silence people who have a opinion that's not supported by science since aside from free speech there are also censorship concerns.
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.
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.