Republicans 8.5x more likely to believe lies than democrats

Your thread is started with a lie from a democrat….will you starting this thread throw off the stats?

 

The magnitude can be in debate but the fact is republicans are either less bright or they are more prolific liars. There is no third option.

https://psyarxiv.com/y762k/

Grinberg et al.(2019) found that Twitter users on the political right are 2.5 times more likely to share fake news than those on the political left during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and that those on the extreme right were 4.3 times more likely to share fake news than those on the extreme left.

Guess et al. (2019) found that Republicans shared 8.5 times more fake headlines on Facebook than Democrats during the same time period.

Guay et al (2023) found Republicans sharing 52% more false agreeable headlines than Democrats.

 

This study’s conclusion had the same theme.

“Abstract: The idea that U.S. conservatives are uniquely likely to hold misperceptions is widespread but has not been systematically assessed. Research has focused on beliefs about narrow sets of claims never intended to capture the richness of the political information environment. Furthermore, factors contributing to this performance gap remain unclear. We generated an unique longitudinal dataset combining social media engagement data and a 12-wave panel study of Americans’ political knowledge about high-profile news over 6 months.

Results confirm that conservatives have lower sensitivity than liberals, performing worse at distinguishing truths and falsehoods. This is partially explained by the fact that the most widely shared falsehoods tend to promote conservative positions, while corresponding truths typically favor liberals. The problem is exacerbated by liberals’ tendency to experience bigger improvements in sensitivity than conservatives as the proportion of partisan news increases. These results underscore the importance of reducing the supply of right-leaning misinformation.

If true, these observations would have important consequences. Holding accurate political knowledge is fundamental to democracy (8), and ideological differences in citizens’ understanding of empirical evidence about politically important topics are potentially destabilizing to democracy itself (9, 10). Effective decision-making depends on having a common understanding of the reality to which citizens and lawmakers must collectively respond”

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234

 

^ I stopped reading after the first paragraph gave me the heads up.

 

The “right” is not a not a monolith. There are many fiscal, environmental, and libertarian conservatives that caucus with the GOP. The social engineering projects on both sides seem to get all the headlines. I tend to believe that it is not an intelligence factor. Many on both sides are elites with educations with many titles and degrees.

moon landing, JFK, Malcom X, MLK… all conspiracy theories that cross the political rubicon.

These recent articles by the media to pin conspiracy on the right are sort of… garbage.

 

Doesn't sound like this has much to do with believing conspiracies. Just believing falsehoods. I don't think it's fair to pin it on the "right" but it's pretty obvious you can pin it on MAGA. They coined the term "alternative facts" lol

 

This whole debate presupposes the concept of objective truth, which they reject as a premise.

 

Anecdotes don’t always hold up when expanded to a broader population., but I’ll be damned if this forum’s “ratio” for spreading this sort of fake news isn’t much, much greater than the 8.5x these researchers found.

Of course if this forum is anything to go by, it tends to be just a small % of people that post a high volume of garbage. It’s nothing new either. Today it tends to come from social media or memes, 10 or 20 years ago it would come from chain email type sources. This forum used to have a mod that would post the most ridiculous rubbish, sometimes stuff that had been debunked *YEARS* prior, then when called out or corrected he would just say “I stand by my post”. I just always found that sort of behavior (willful ignorance) bizarre. Everyone can be taken on by a misleading story, whether MSM or otherwise, nobody is above jumping the gun on stories. But the persistent willful ignorance comes off as extremely asymmetrical to me.

 

What is false and what is true? What is a fact? What is a lie? Alternative facts was hilarious but also brilliant.

I have no basis for this: to be open to conspiracy comes from a place of believing that one is chosen.

 

The problem is, the “alternative facts” crowd still holds an actual majority in that party. And the fence sitters will go along with it, meaning the party is itself now an alternative facts party. Just look how Kevin McCarthy has had to utterly debase himself.

 

I mean, in a philosophical sense I get you. But MAGA isn't looking at this from some philosophical debate. They're into things like sharpie hurricane paths.

 

agree. My answer is the last line of my prior post… to be chosen.

 

Per PLOS more than half of all studies are false and Democrats 8.5 times more likely to believe them.

 

it's certainly true that neither the left nor the right is a monolith all thinking and saying the same things. Same with the media. Or Christians. Or police. Or teachers. Or government workers ...

But a survey like this isn't about every one thinking the same thing. It's about percentages. If a survey found that UF students are more likely to be into football than, say, Georgia Tech students .. it wouldn't mean that every UF fan is one and that no Tech fans are. Simply that the percentage is higher in Gainesville.

 

So exposure to faith (the believing of stuff without evidence) is harmful to being a skeptic later in life.

 

a big concern is state sponsored efforts (Russia) to promote false information. imo maga is very susceptible to it.


“In Germany, news magazine Der Spiegel warnedabout natural gas shortages. In the United Kingdom, the Guardian, another media outlet, raised doubts about Russian war crimes in Ukraine. In Italy, Ansa, a leading news agency, criticized Kyiv’s storage of much-needed grain.

These news stories were all promoted extensively on Facebook and Twitter. They were all fake — and formed part of an extensive Russian influence operation to promote the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine that targeted people across the European Union and U.K., according to a report published Tuesday by Meta.”


‘Grotesque’ Russian disinfo campaign mimics Western news websites to sow dissent


“The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known, boosting lies about Ukraine’s military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/16/russia-disinformation-discord-leaked-documents/

 

“Trump won… by a lot”

Obviously there is political spin that all politicians will do and continue to do until the end of time.

“Alternative facts” isn’t that, it’s politicians straight up lying to your face, Baghdad Bob style. I guess the “brilliance” is that it has convinced some that “both sides do it”, spinning Baghdad Bob style bs into a false equivalency with traditional “spin” (which to me is more cherry-picking some positive points even out of bad news, rather than totally making shit up). But that’s just the people willfully doing it. There is also a set living in an alternative universe, almost like a dystopian hellscape. It’s rather amazing really, usually you’d think this could only happen under a dictator where the media is tightly controlled by the state. Not where people have free choice.

 

Atheists are believers. There, I said it.

 

I totally understand your point. I just don’t believe the premise that the Georgia Tech has football fans.