TheWoodConsultant t1_jaz8go6 wrote
Reply to comment by mindfu in On Facebook, Visual Misinfo Widespread. In the runup to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election visual misinformation was widespread across the platform, and that it was highly asymmetric across party lines, with right-leaning images five to eight times more likely to be misleading. by Wagamaga
I thank you missed my point that left and right and subjective and arbitrary. That said; per the NIH, before Covid around 22% on both groups believed “Vaccinations can have serious side effects that cause more harm than some of the diseases that they are supposed to prevent.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938547/
I’m also not presenting some sort of politically charged analysis, only saying that they need to present more detail about their methodology since they are using highly subjective topics that I have have experience with.
mindfu t1_jazcf6d wrote
I didn't miss your point about left and right being an arbitrary distinction, I disagree with it. :-)
For beliefs before COVID, of course that's before COVID misinformation started. Once it started, it's pretty clear which political side was having more misinformation pushed on Facebook.
So I guess I think the methodology is clear enough. Nothing in politics or human psychology can be configured to the last decimal, but it's pretty clear at this point what the policies and opinions of the American right tend to be. And how they tend to be different from the American left.
TheWoodConsultant t1_jazehr4 wrote
Not sure how you can disagree, the terms themselves have to be subjective since they are, by definition, relative. Things that your average boomer would consider left would likely be considered right by your average gen Z. Same with a European vs. an American.
With regards to post Covid data, it will be a while before we get reliable information since in Left leaning circles people aren’t allowed to express reservations about vaccine openly like in right leaning circles and masks.
I not saying there isn’t more conservative centric info on Fb, it’s mostly a boomer platform after all, I just have concerns with their methodology given I did this work professionally and given what was presented in the article I think what they have done has the potential to be flawed.
I know there is also a tendency to put all Covid misinformed into the right/Republican bucket whatever the source. In 2020 a lot of the Covid misinformation was coming from sources that we suspected were PRC and then they spread across all political spectrums. It wasn’t until post 2020 election that it really polarized that questioning the status quo on Covid was considered right wing. Remember the democratic presidential debates when the candidates called the safety of the Covid vaccine into question?
Then in 2021 I remember neighbors in SF acting like I was crazy for discussing the danish, German, and Israel data that suggested 6-8 week between vaccine doses was safer for young men.
mindfu t1_jazj7cn wrote
> Not sure how you can disagree, the terms themselves have to be subjective since they are, by definition, relative.
They are subjective to the degree that anything involving human society isn't objective, sure. And also if politics means anything, and it does, then it's measurable enough to study. Clearly.
Ask a boomer or a zoomer which is more right wing, the GOP or the Democratic party, and you will get the GOP being right wing well more than 99.9% of the time. More than enough precision for this sort of study.
>it will be a while before we get reliable information since
About what? :) We're talking about memes that were published before 2020. We have that data.
>I not saying there isn’t more conservative centric info on Fb,
OK but that's not the point. The point is the memes that were right wing had noticeably more disinformation, by 5 to 8 times.
>I know there is also a tendency to put all Covid misinformed into the right/Republican bucket whatever the source.
OK, but that's also not what happened in this study.
>It wasn’t until post 2020 election that it really polarized that questioning the status quo on Covid was considered right wing.
No, that's not accurate. Conservative misinformation about vaccines started in 2019. Mid-year at the latest.
SerialStateLineXer t1_jazyfer wrote
>“Vaccinations can have serious side effects that cause more harm than some of the diseases that they are supposed to prevent.”
That's technically true. The COVID-19 vaccines could very rarely cause GBS, anaphylaxis, and dangerous blood clots, all of which are more dangerous than COVID-19 for the typical person.
Cost-benefit analysis heavily favored getting vaccinated, of course, but that's a very badly designed survey question.
SnooPuppers1978 t1_jb1xvlv wrote
Yes, this question definitely needs to specify that on the whole population level over large numbers.
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