Re:Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes
by kelseyfrog on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @07:13PM
(#29560084)
Growing up I was told hundreds of times "not to believe everything you read on the internet." Parents, teachers, relatives, and older folks all told me that. It was a cliche, and us younger people made fun of it being a cliche in the same way we made fun of downloading cars. Even so, it stuck with me.
Then it stopped. No one said it anymore. What happened?
Re:Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes
by techdragon on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @03:58AM
(#29563553)
Unscrupulous marketing people discovered the effectiveness of doublespeak. They turned the natural suspicion of internet information back at itself by implying that “the other people on the internet are lying to you, I’m going to tell you the real truth” and because everyone knows you can’t trust the internet they are subtly manipulated into being more likely to believe something new that is untrue.
I finally a cut a relative off after his long slide deeper into extremism culminated in posting Facebook memes demeaning me and people I cared about leading up to the 2016 election. I'm sure he thinks it was out of nowhere because he brushed me off when I asked him to stop saying such cruel and ignorant things.
Said relative was completely unmoved every time I said "that's me. You know me. Why are you saying these things about me? Why are you saying these things about people who matter to me?"
We were strangers long before I realized it. 2016 was just the wakeup call. There's no difference to me between people claiming relatives cut them off out of nowhere "over politics" and estranged parents in estranged parent forums who don't understand why their kids went no contact. They know or were at least told. But they didn't listen.