#factchecking — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #factchecking, aggregated by home.social.
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Is treasa tuath na tighearna — the people are mightier than a lord. An old sentence from a wet country full of people who lost, and lost, and are somehow still speaking the language the losing was supposed to end.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
3/3 -
Is treasa tuath na tighearna — the people are mightier than a lord. An old sentence from a wet country full of people who lost, and lost, and are somehow still speaking the language the losing was supposed to end.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
3/3 -
Nobody upstairs can call and ask me to soften a paragraph about an Attorney General, because there is no upstairs. That is the entire product.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
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Nobody upstairs can call and ask me to soften a paragraph about an Attorney General, because there is no upstairs. That is the entire product.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
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Today's issue took 2 hours and cites numerous linked sources. Such is the life of an indepedent and rather poor journalist.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
1/3 -
Today's issue took 2 hours and cites numerous linked sources. Such is the life of an indepedent and rather poor journalist.
#Journalism #IndependentMedia #QueerNews #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #FactChecking #News #Media #Resist #Solidarity #Accountability #ReaderFunded
1/3 -
Reuters: Meta and TikTok agree to fact-check content on Spain border crossings after deadly rush. “Social networks Meta and TikTok have agreed to fact-check content on border crossings into Spain following the massive rush to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, European Union tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/12/reuters-meta-and-tiktok-agree-to-fact-check-content-on-spain-border-crossings-after-deadly-rush/ -
Reuters: Meta and TikTok agree to fact-check content on Spain border crossings after deadly rush. “Social networks Meta and TikTok have agreed to fact-check content on border crossings into Spain following the massive rush to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, European Union tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/12/reuters-meta-and-tiktok-agree-to-fact-check-content-on-spain-border-crossings-after-deadly-rush/ -
La Tierra no vota
Cada cierto tiempo la naturaleza nos obliga a recordar una verdad incómoda: somos mucho menos importantes de lo que creemos.
Un temblor sacude una ciudad. Un terremoto destruye carreteras. Una inundación arrastra barrios enteros. Un incendio convierte en cenizas lo que tomó décadas construir.
Y, sin embargo, seguimos comportándonos como si nuestras etiquetas políticas fueran más importantes que nuestra condición humana.
La Tierra no distingue entre izquierdas y derechas.
No perdona conservadores. No castiga progresistas.
No pregunta por quién votaste en las últimas elecciones ni revisa tu historial de publicaciones en redes sociales.
Cuando tiembla, tiembla para todos.
El concreto cae con la misma indiferencia sobre creyentes y ateos, ricos y pobres, liberales y conservadores. La naturaleza no reconoce las fronteras ideológicas que hemos levantado para separarnos unos de otros.
Mientras una parte del país intenta entender los daños de un sismo, no faltan quienes convierten cualquier tragedia en una oportunidad para defender a un político, atacar a otro o repetir consignas partidistas.
Como si la realidad tuviera obligación de obedecer nuestras preferencias.
Pero la realidad es más brutal.
Un terremoto no negocia.
Una inundación no debate.
Un huracán no participa en campañas electorales.
La naturaleza simplemente ocurre.
Quizás por eso los desastres nos resultan tan incómodos: porque nos recuerdan que, debajo de las banderas, los partidos, las ideologías y las consignas, seguimos siendo una especie vulnerable viviendo sobre una roca que gira alrededor de una estrella.
Una roca que, de vez en cuando, se mueve.
Y cuando lo hace, deja al descubierto algo que muchos prefieren ignorar:
compartimos mucho más de lo que nos separa.
Tal vez el problema nunca fue la izquierda o la derecha.
Tal vez el problema sea haber olvidado que, antes que militantes, seguidores o fanáticos, somos seres humanos.
Y la Tierra, afortunadamente, sigue sin votar.
Mientras ustedes siguen divididos entre izquierdas, derechas y otras pollas en vinagre, la Tierra les recuerda que debajo de los pies todos pisan el mismo suelo. 😏🫰🏽
#Abelardo #Bogotá #Cali #Caliwood #Chocó #ciencia #Colombia #desinformación #dignidad #EjeCafetero #ElMandeLaCámara #elmandelacamara #Ensayo #factChecking #fanatismo #geología #humanidad #Ideologías #inteligenciaArtificial #izquierdaYDerecha #Manizales #naturaleza #noticiasFalsas #Opinión #pacto #pensamientoCrítico #Pereira #petro #polarizaciónPolítica #Política #Reflexión #sismo #Sociedad #temblor #terremoto #Uribe #verificaciónDeInformación #Zoociedad -
La Tierra no vota
Cada cierto tiempo la naturaleza nos obliga a recordar una verdad incómoda: somos mucho menos importantes de lo que creemos.
Un temblor sacude una ciudad. Un terremoto destruye carreteras. Una inundación arrastra barrios enteros. Un incendio convierte en cenizas lo que tomó décadas construir.
Y, sin embargo, seguimos comportándonos como si nuestras etiquetas políticas fueran más importantes que nuestra condición humana.
La Tierra no distingue entre izquierdas y derechas.
No perdona conservadores. No castiga progresistas.
No pregunta por quién votaste en las últimas elecciones ni revisa tu historial de publicaciones en redes sociales.
Cuando tiembla, tiembla para todos.
El concreto cae con la misma indiferencia sobre creyentes y ateos, ricos y pobres, liberales y conservadores. La naturaleza no reconoce las fronteras ideológicas que hemos levantado para separarnos unos de otros.
Mientras una parte del país intenta entender los daños de un sismo, no faltan quienes convierten cualquier tragedia en una oportunidad para defender a un político, atacar a otro o repetir consignas partidistas.
Como si la realidad tuviera obligación de obedecer nuestras preferencias.
Pero la realidad es más brutal.
Un terremoto no negocia.
Una inundación no debate.
Un huracán no participa en campañas electorales.
La naturaleza simplemente ocurre.
Quizás por eso los desastres nos resultan tan incómodos: porque nos recuerdan que, debajo de las banderas, los partidos, las ideologías y las consignas, seguimos siendo una especie vulnerable viviendo sobre una roca que gira alrededor de una estrella.
Una roca que, de vez en cuando, se mueve.
Y cuando lo hace, deja al descubierto algo que muchos prefieren ignorar:
compartimos mucho más de lo que nos separa.
Tal vez el problema nunca fue la izquierda o la derecha.
Tal vez el problema sea haber olvidado que, antes que militantes, seguidores o fanáticos, somos seres humanos.
Y la Tierra, afortunadamente, sigue sin votar.
Mientras ustedes siguen divididos entre izquierdas, derechas y otras pollas en vinagre, la Tierra les recuerda que debajo de los pies todos pisan el mismo suelo. 😏🫰🏽
#Abelardo #Bogotá #Cali #Caliwood #Chocó #ciencia #Colombia #desinformación #dignidad #EjeCafetero #ElMandeLaCámara #elmandelacamara #Ensayo #factChecking #fanatismo #geología #humanidad #Ideologías #inteligenciaArtificial #izquierdaYDerecha #Manizales #naturaleza #noticiasFalsas #Opinión #pacto #pensamientoCrítico #Pereira #petro #polarizaciónPolítica #Política #Reflexión #sismo #Sociedad #temblor #terremoto #Uribe #verificaciónDeInformación #Zoociedad -
Człowiek na talerzu? To się nie opłaca!
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AI agents are checking the scientific literature — and spotting decades-old errors www.nature.com/articles/d4158… #AI #FactChecking
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AI agents are checking the scientific literature — and spotting decades-old errors www.nature.com/articles/d4158… #AI #FactChecking
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#FactChecking Pro #Israel Columnist Who Called #Gaza #Genocide ‘#Farcical’
#Zeteo #HasanMehdi #yt -
#FactChecking Pro #Israel Columnist Who Called #Gaza #Genocide ‘#Farcical’
#Zeteo #HasanMehdi #yt -
Poynter: South Korea wrote a fact-checking code into law. Korean fact-checkers are wary.. “In South Korea, anyone who believes an online post is false can now report it. The company that hosts the post must then decide whether the complaint is valid. That is how an amendment to the Network Act, which took effect July 7, is designed to work. It applies to nine platforms with at least a million […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/03/poynter-south-korea-wrote-a-fact-checking-code-into-law-korean-fact-checkers-are-wary/ -
Poynter: South Korea wrote a fact-checking code into law. Korean fact-checkers are wary.. “In South Korea, anyone who believes an online post is false can now report it. The company that hosts the post must then decide whether the complaint is valid. That is how an amendment to the Network Act, which took effect July 7, is designed to work. It applies to nine platforms with at least a million […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/03/poynter-south-korea-wrote-a-fact-checking-code-into-law-korean-fact-checkers-are-wary/ -
As this year's northern hemisphere heatwaves and fires show the #climatecrisis deepening, the climate denial becomes ever more virulent.
Despite what the bots and oil industry shills say, Europe is suffering an unusual number and ferocity of fires.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no-europe-is-not-having-its-quietest-year-for-wildfires #heatwave #wildfire #fire #washington #france #italy #greece #spain #climatechange #factchecking
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As this year's northern hemisphere heatwaves and fires show the #climatecrisis deepening, the climate denial becomes ever more virulent.
Despite what the bots and oil industry shills say, Europe is suffering an unusual number and ferocity of fires.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no-europe-is-not-having-its-quietest-year-for-wildfires #heatwave #wildfire #fire #washington #france #italy #greece #spain #climatechange #factchecking
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A Ceuta, territorio spagnolo in Nord Africa, migliaia di persone hanno tentato di raggiungere l’Europa a nuoto dal Marocco. Almeno diciotto sono morte.
Di fronte alla crisi, il governo italiano ha scelto lo sciacallaggio: Antonio Tajani ha minacciato di chiudere Schengen con la Spagna e ha accusato Madrid di aver dato la «cittadinanza spagnola, quindi europea» a oltre 500mila migranti irregolari.
È falso.
Il governo Sánchez ha aperto una regolarizzazione straordinaria: un permesso di soggiorno e lavoro per chi viveva già in Spagna prima del 1º gennaio 2026. Le domande si sono chiuse il 30 giugno: chi attraversa il confine non può beneficiarne.
Il capo della diplomazia italiana ha dunque inventato una cittadinanza inesistente e un nesso causale che non regge.
Eppure il governo Meloni ha programmato l’ingresso di 497.550 lavoratori stranieri tra il 2026 e il 2028: necessari quando servono alle imprese, pericolosi quando servono alla propaganda contro Sánchez.
Non è politica estera. È sciacallaggio politico.
Ceuta mostra il fallimento di un’Europa senza una gestione comune delle frontiere, canali legali e solidarietà tra gli Stati: inventare un nemico a Madrid è più facile.
#Ceuta #Migrazioni #Schengen #Tajani #FactChecking #EuropaFederale #Volt #VoltItalia #VoltEuropa
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A Ceuta, territorio spagnolo in Nord Africa, migliaia di persone hanno tentato di raggiungere l’Europa a nuoto dal Marocco. Almeno diciotto sono morte.
Di fronte alla crisi, il governo italiano ha scelto lo sciacallaggio: Antonio Tajani ha minacciato di chiudere Schengen con la Spagna e ha accusato Madrid di aver dato la «cittadinanza spagnola, quindi europea» a oltre 500mila migranti irregolari.
È falso.
Il governo Sánchez ha aperto una regolarizzazione straordinaria: un permesso di soggiorno e lavoro per chi viveva già in Spagna prima del 1º gennaio 2026. Le domande si sono chiuse il 30 giugno: chi attraversa il confine non può beneficiarne.
Il capo della diplomazia italiana ha dunque inventato una cittadinanza inesistente e un nesso causale che non regge.
Eppure il governo Meloni ha programmato l’ingresso di 497.550 lavoratori stranieri tra il 2026 e il 2028: necessari quando servono alle imprese, pericolosi quando servono alla propaganda contro Sánchez.
Non è politica estera. È sciacallaggio politico.
Ceuta mostra il fallimento di un’Europa senza una gestione comune delle frontiere, canali legali e solidarietà tra gli Stati: inventare un nemico a Madrid è più facile.
#Ceuta #Migrazioni #Schengen #Tajani #FactChecking #EuropaFederale #Volt #VoltItalia #VoltEuropa
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Bullshit Detector – agent skills that fact-check videos and articles
https://github.com/SerhiiKorniienko/bullshit-detector
Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096917
#HackerNews #BullshitDetector #factchecking #media #literacy #criticalthinking #techforgood
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Bullshit Detector – agent skills that fact-check videos and articles
https://github.com/SerhiiKorniienko/bullshit-detector
Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096917
#HackerNews #BullshitDetector #factchecking #media #literacy #criticalthinking #techforgood
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Discurso midiático global se pluralizou e o espaço de informação passou a ser mais acessível
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Discurso midiático global se pluralizou e o espaço de informação passou a ser mais acessível
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[lien] Pourquoi les hommes mangent ils plus de viande que les femmes ? - The Conversation – Articles (FR) (Laurie Balbo, Associate Professor of Marketing, GEM · Shiva Vaziri, Assistant Professor in Marketing, PSB Paris School of Business · Sumayya Shaikh, Assistant professor, PSB Paris School of Business) #factchecking #miam
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Męskość pod kontrolą. Po co Pentagon bada żołnierzom testosteron?
https://oko.press/meskosc-pod-kontrola-po-co-pentagon-bada-zolnierzom-testosteron
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Męskość pod kontrolą. Po co Pentagon bada żołnierzom testosteron?
https://oko.press/meskosc-pod-kontrola-po-co-pentagon-bada-zolnierzom-testosteron
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Elon Musk Faces Fact-Check Over Inflammatory X Posts
📰 Original title: A moron and a liar': Elon Musk smacked with brutal fact check over 'nonsense' X posts
🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️View full AI summary https://en.killbait.com/elon-musk-faces-fact-check-over-inflammatory-x-posts.html?utm_source=mastodon_world&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=killbait.mastodon_world
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W "Polskich biesach" Grzegorz Braun przedstawia polski wiek XVIII jako pasmo obcych prowokacji: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej to "masoneria dla nieletnich", Konstytucja 3 Maja - "zamach stanu podyktowany w loży", a bp Sołtyk - niewinna ofiara.
Zestawiłem te tezy z historiografią: co się broni, a co jest manipulacją przez selekcję faktów.#historia #dezinformacja #Polska #factchecking #GrzegorzBraun #PolskieBiesy
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W "Polskich biesach" Grzegorz Braun przedstawia polski wiek XVIII jako pasmo obcych prowokacji: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej to "masoneria dla nieletnich", Konstytucja 3 Maja - "zamach stanu podyktowany w loży", a bp Sołtyk - niewinna ofiara.
Zestawiłem te tezy z historiografią: co się broni, a co jest manipulacją przez selekcję faktów.#historia #dezinformacja #Polska #factchecking #GrzegorzBraun #PolskieBiesy
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Last year MIT Media Lab's study on cognitive debt resulting from AI tools shows that people who used one of AI tools, in this scenario ChatGPT, for writing and administrative tasks, had their own writing skills decreased, with lower task performance scores.
However, since AI tools often hallucinate and provide output, it creates higher motivation to train skills allowing journalists to analyze the output, cross-reference and research sources. This may result in growing need to upskill and work on self-improving other important skills in areas like research, fact-checking and discerning between reality and fiction.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #journalism #media #research #writing #factchecking #SelfImprovement #MITMediaLab
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Last year MIT Media Lab's study on cognitive debt resulting from AI tools shows that people who used one of AI tools, in this scenario ChatGPT, for writing and administrative tasks, had their own writing skills decreased, with lower task performance scores.
However, since AI tools often hallucinate and provide output, it creates higher motivation to train skills allowing journalists to analyze the output, cross-reference and research sources. This may result in growing need to upskill and work on self-improving other important skills in areas like research, fact-checking and discerning between reality and fiction.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #journalism #media #research #writing #factchecking #SelfImprovement #MITMediaLab
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Poynter: Poynter’s PolitiFact launches service providing reliable, engaging health information to consumers and news organizations. “The service, called Well Informed, offers reliable, topical health information on social media, where more people are getting information – and misinformation – about health claims. The work is also be available on PolitiFact’s website. And, other news […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/21/poynter-poynters-politifact-launches-service-providing-reliable-engaging-health-information-to-consumers-and-news-organizations/ -
Poynter: Poynter’s PolitiFact launches service providing reliable, engaging health information to consumers and news organizations. “The service, called Well Informed, offers reliable, topical health information on social media, where more people are getting information – and misinformation – about health claims. The work is also be available on PolitiFact’s website. And, other news […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/21/poynter-poynters-politifact-launches-service-providing-reliable-engaging-health-information-to-consumers-and-news-organizations/ -
Domykam cykl o formacie wRealu24.
W trzeciej części pokazuję, że ten sam schemat - "potępiam, ale", jednostka jako cała grupa, my jako ofiara - obsługuje najpierw Ukraińców, a po chwili Żydów (Jedwabne, "rabini", "judaizacja").
Plus: źródło, które samo się dementuje (Myrotworeć/Kuzowkow), i "metafora elektryka" wymierzona w Jasionkę, Starlink i ruch bezwizowy.#Dezinformacja #Propaganda #wRealu24 #MarcinRola #MichalNieznanski #FactChecking #Ukraina #Jedwabne #Antysemityzm #Konfederacja #Wołyń #Media
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Domykam cykl o formacie wRealu24.
W trzeciej części pokazuję, że ten sam schemat - "potępiam, ale", jednostka jako cała grupa, my jako ofiara - obsługuje najpierw Ukraińców, a po chwili Żydów (Jedwabne, "rabini", "judaizacja").
Plus: źródło, które samo się dementuje (Myrotworeć/Kuzowkow), i "metafora elektryka" wymierzona w Jasionkę, Starlink i ruch bezwizowy.#Dezinformacja #Propaganda #wRealu24 #MarcinRola #MichalNieznanski #FactChecking #Ukraina #Jedwabne #Antysemityzm #Konfederacja #Wołyń #Media
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To nie była wpadka jednego gościa - to powtarzalny format produkcyjny.
Dwa odcinki wRealu24 (14 i 17 lipca), ten sam incydent w Bielsku-Białej, to samo pytanie "o ustawkę" - i ta sama progresja: od pozornie "analitycznego" eufemizmu po otwarty postulat, by "wszystkich Ukraińców" odesłać na Ukrainę.
Rozkładam ten mechanizm na czynniki pierwsze.#dezinformacja #wRealu24 #MarcinRola #SebastianPiton #propaganda #Ukraina #FactChecking #OknoOvertona #Polska
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To nie była wpadka jednego gościa - to powtarzalny format produkcyjny.
Dwa odcinki wRealu24 (14 i 17 lipca), ten sam incydent w Bielsku-Białej, to samo pytanie "o ustawkę" - i ta sama progresja: od pozornie "analitycznego" eufemizmu po otwarty postulat, by "wszystkich Ukraińców" odesłać na Ukrainę.
Rozkładam ten mechanizm na czynniki pierwsze.#dezinformacja #wRealu24 #MarcinRola #SebastianPiton #propaganda #Ukraina #FactChecking #OknoOvertona #Polska
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How often do five frontier LLMs agree on whether a claim is true? Across 1,000 real fact-check requests, they agree only about a third of the time. The rubric inflates that, since it forces a four-way verdict with no option to abstain. But even the two models that can search the web flatly contradict each other on 6% of claims, one calling a statement true and the other false, though both can look up the same sources.
https://benjaminhan.net/posts/20260720-llm-disagreement/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
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How often do five frontier LLMs agree on whether a claim is true? Across 1,000 real fact-check requests, they agree only about a third of the time. The rubric inflates that, since it forces a four-way verdict with no option to abstain. But even the two models that can search the web flatly contradict each other on 6% of claims, one calling a statement true and the other false, though both can look up the same sources.
https://benjaminhan.net/posts/20260720-llm-disagreement/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
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Jak z jednego incydentu, przeniesionej statystyki i łańcucha spekulacji powstaje gotowa narracja? Rozbieram rozmowę z wRealu24 krok po kroku.
#dezinformacja #manipulacja #propaganda #factchecking #mediaspołecznościowe #psychologiaSpołeczna #Polska #Ukraina #wRealu24 #analizaDyskursu
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Jak z jednego incydentu, przeniesionej statystyki i łańcucha spekulacji powstaje gotowa narracja? Rozbieram rozmowę z wRealu24 krok po kroku.
#dezinformacja #manipulacja #propaganda #factchecking #mediaspołecznościowe #psychologiaSpołeczna #Polska #Ukraina #wRealu24 #analizaDyskursu
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DATE: July 17, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New psychology research reveals the insidious nature of bullshit
URL: https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-reveals-the-insidious-nature-of-bullshit/
A recent study published in Current Psychology suggests that people are more likely to believe false information when it comes from someone who ignores the truth rather than a liar who actively tries to deceive. The research indicates that repeating statements made by someone indifferent to facts heavily increases how truthful those statements feel to readers. These findings provide evidence that casual disregard for reality poses a uniquely potent threat to public knowledge and belief.
The digital age makes tracking misinformation increasingly difficult. Information often spreads not just through intentional deception, but through a behavior known in psychology as bullshitting. In academic terms, a liar is someone who knows the truth and intentionally tries to mislead an audience. A bullshitter, on the other hand, communicates with little to no regard for the truth, evidence, or established facts.
A statement made by a bullshitter might happen to be true, or it might be false. The defining characteristic is the speaker’s total indifference to reality. Because bullshitters do not actively try to hide a specific truth, people often judge them less harshly than they judge outright liars.
John V. Petrocelli, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University and author of the book The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit, wanted to test the real-world impact of this behavior. He noted that philosopher Harry Frankfurt proposed the insidious bullshit hypothesis in 1986. This idea suggests that society’s tolerance for bullshitting actually creates more long-term harm to public knowledge than lying.
Past research supports this distinction. In a 2023 study, Petrocelli and his colleagues explored how untrustworthy sources influence consumer attitudes over time. Participants read an advertisement for a fictitious gluten-free pizza and then learned the advertiser was either a known liar or a known bullshitter.
After a two-week delay, participants who had been warned about the bullshitter reported more positive attitudes toward the pizza than those warned about the liar. This demonstrated a “sleeper effect,” where the deceptive influence of the bullshitter actually grew stronger over time. The researchers also found that people possess a higher “dismissal readiness” for lies, meaning they find it easier to entirely reject a known lie than a statement of bullshit.
“We’d already found that people evaluate bullshitting less harshly than lying, consistent with Frankfurt’s (1986) essay,” Petrocelli explained. “But the harder question Frankfurt raised, and one almost nobody had tested empirically, was whether bullshit actually does more damage to what people believe, precisely because it doesn’t trigger the same skepticism a known lie does.”
To test this idea further, researchers examined how bullshitting interacts with the illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to believe false information is correct simply after hearing it multiple times. When the human brain encounters a repeated statement, it processes that information more easily, and people often mistake this mental ease for actual truth.
Scientists wanted to see if knowing the source of a claim changes this effect. “The illusory truth effect literature gave me a clean, well-validated paradigm to test that consequence directly, rather than just people’s attitudes about bullshitting,” Petrocelli said. If a person knows a statement comes from a bullshitter rather than a liar, they might not filter the repeated information as strictly.
To investigate these dynamics, the authors designed a series of three experiments. In the first experiment, 204 undergraduate students evaluated 42 different statements. Half of these statements were factual, and half were completely false.
The participants were told the statements came from either an average person, a known liar, or a known bullshitter. The researchers provided specific definitions of a liar and a bullshitter to the participants to ensure they understood the difference. The students then rated how likely each statement was to be true on an 11-point scale.
The data showed that participants rated statements from an alleged bullshitter as more truthful than the exact same statements made by an alleged liar. The average person was trusted the most, but the bullshitter was trusted significantly more than the liar. This initial finding shows people naturally assign a higher likelihood of truth to bullshitting than they do to intentional lies.
The specific terms used to describe the sources were not the main driver of these results. “Just that the labels themselves turned out to matter less than we expected, it wasn’t simply that ‘bullshitter’ sounds better than ‘liar’,” Petrocelli said. “When we controlled for the base rate of false statements in Experiment 3 and gave very explicit, careful definitions of what the source’s instructions were, the effect held up.”
Petrocelli added that this consistency was reassuring. “That gives me more confidence this is really tracking something about how people process source-indifference to truth, not just a reaction to a loaded word,” he explained. The researchers then moved to test how this baseline trust interacts with repeated exposure in a second experiment.
In the second experiment, 293 students participated in a test of the illusory truth effect. The researchers exposed participants to 66 statements and asked them to rate how interesting they were. This served as an initial exposure phase, where some statements appeared once, and some appeared twice.
Before the final truth rating task, the authors separated the participants into different groups. One group was told the author of the statements was instructed to include some obvious lies. Another group was told the author was instructed to include statements with no regard for the truth.
The scientists also manipulated when the participants received a warning about the false information. Half the participants were warned before they read any statements during the initial phase. The other half read the statements first and were warned only before the final truth rating task.
During the final task, everyone rated the truthfulness of 88 statements on a six-point scale. These included a mix of entirely new claims and the repeated claims from the first phase. The researchers then compared how the different warnings affected the students’ beliefs.
The results revealed that forewarning people about falsity before they read the statements reduced the illusory truth effect across all groups. However, when the warning came after the initial exposure, a major difference emerged. Participants in the liar and control groups successfully corrected their judgments, recognizing the false statements as untrue.
In contrast, participants in the bullshitter group still fell for the illusory truth effect. Even after learning the author had no regard for the truth, these students rated the repeated false statements as highly truthful. The repetition of the bullshit claims successfully tricked their minds into believing the statements.
Petrocelli found this specific dynamic particularly intriguing. “The most striking pattern to me was that forewarning worked very differently depending on timing,” he said. “When people were warned before exposure that some information might be bullshit or lies, the illusory truth effect was largely neutralized across the board.”
The delayed warning produced an entirely different response. “But when people only learned after the fact that they’d been exposed to bullshit, the effect not only persisted for bullshit, it was the strongest condition in the whole design,” Petrocelli noted. Lies and honest control claims actually got corrected downward once people learned the truth after exposure.
“That asymmetry, corrective efforts working for lies but seemingly backfiring or simply not working for bullshit, was the clearest empirical signature of insidiousness we could have hoped for,” Petrocelli explained. To confirm these patterns, the researchers conducted a third experiment with 318 students. The setup was nearly identical to the second experiment, but with a strict condition to ensure the results were not just based on assumptions about lying frequencies.
They explicitly told participants that exactly half of the statements were false, lies, or bullshit, depending on the assigned group. This held the frequency of deception completely equal across all scenarios. The authors found the exact same pattern as the previous test, providing evidence that repeated exposure to truth-indifferent claims bypasses critical thinking.
These outcomes suggest that recognizing a source as a liar stops the brain from linking repetition to truth, but recognizing a source as a bullshitter fails to put up the same mental blockade. Petrocelli highlighted how this tendency leaves people vulnerable. “The instinct to relax your guard around someone who’s ‘just talking out of their hat’ rather than deliberately lying to you is exactly backwards,” he explained.
“A known liar’s claims get flagged and rejected; a bullshitter’s claims, because they’re not certainly false, slide by with much less resistance, and repetition alone makes them feel truer over time,” Petrocelli said. He suggested that people change how they evaluate everyday conversations. “If anything, the practical takeaway is: don’t just ask ‘is this person lying to me,’ ask ‘does this person actually know or care whether this is true,’ and treat repeated exposure to indifferent talk with at least as much scrutiny as you’d give a claim you know to be contested,” he recommended.
Recognizing the boundaries of this study helps place the findings into proper context. Petrocelli pointed out two main caveats regarding the research. “First, our operationalization is narrow: we tested one specific cognitive manifestation of insidiousness, the magnitude of the illusory truth effect under repetition, not Frankfurt’s full philosophical claim about bullshit’s corrosive effect on public discourse generally,” he explained.
The second limitation involves how the sources were presented to the participants. “Our manipulation relied on labeling someone a ‘bullshitter’ or ‘liar’ via source instructions, not on demonstrably truth-indifferent behavior itself,” Petrocelli noted. “So strictly speaking, these findings are about the effects of the label and its associated expectations, and future work really needs designs where bullshit is behaviorally instantiated rather than just described.”
Future investigations will likely focus on expanding these initial discoveries into more complex scenarios. The current research relied on neutral, trivia-style statements, but real-world misinformation often centers around highly emotional topics. “One is moving from neutral trivia statements to emotionally charged, real-world content, political claims, health misinformation, since motivated reasoning could plausibly amplify or dampen these effects,” Petrocelli said of his next steps.
He also plans to test whether the effect holds when people are not explicitly warned about a source’s intentions. “And longer-term, we want to push toward interventions, could platforms or media literacy programs actually teach people to detect truth-indifference specifically, as opposed to just teaching general fact-checking or lie-detection skills, which our work suggests may not transfer well to bullshit?” he added.
The study, “When fools have greater influence than liars: testing the insidious bullshit hypothesis with the illusory truth effect,” was authored by John V. Petrocelli, Elijah N. Rice, and Joseph M. Curran.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-reveals-the-insidious-nature-of-bullshit/
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Opublikowałem postscriptum nr 2 po nowych ustaleniach Demagog i ukraińskiego CPD
#OSINT #Dezinformacja #Ukraina #Propaganda #FactChecking
https://medium.com/@photoolek/dwadzie%C5%9Bcia-trzy-sekundy-kt%C3%B3re-mia%C5%82y-wystarczy%C4%87-za-dow%C3%B3d-c66b33996243 -
Jeden tweet o ustawie dotyczącej pornografii w ukraińskim parlamencie wywołał falę ksenofobicznych komentarzy, które wykluły się w kilkanaście godzin. Analiza.
#Dezinformacja #Ukraina #antysemityzm #propaganda #FactChecking
https://medium.com/@photoolek/jak-jeden-tweet-o-pornografii-sta%C5%82-si%C4%99-poligonem-nienawi%C5%9Bci-462b006dd329