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I saw a few Facebook posts on my  feed the other day of New Yorker articles, and the first few associated comments about them.

There’s some serious negative emotion there. But it’s worth noting that both New Yorker articles are satire. I can’t be certain that everyone looking at these thought they were real–certainly nobody’s going to admit to it–but the comments suggest that this was their first impression.

Looking at the headlines again, and knowing that the New Yorker publishes satire pieces rather than actual news reports, it might be surprising that there would be any question.

Another friend was fond of forwarding me chain emails until she got tired of me replying with Snopes articles about them. 

One looked like this:

It later accused the President of using national taxpayer dollars to build it in his own home state. The pictured structured turned out to be a prison, indeed (which turned into an interesting deep-dive), but in Austria.

Another email I got had pictures of the results of a raid; the email claimed that it was American border patrol agents raiding Mexican paramilitary units entering the US via Arizona. The email  had lines like, “it’s a war out there, but the news media is covering it up!”

But the pictures pretty obviously have no American uniforms or troops, and the sub-tropical environment tells us it’s not the US–turns out it’s a raid of FARC in Colombia. Just not even close.

When we’re primed to be skeptical that the President is building fancy hotel-prisons, or that Mexico is invading the United States, we’re likely to recognize that these emails probably aren’t describing reality.

A third shared an article on Facebook that claimed that the Fukashima power plant was still leaking radioactive material in the ocean (it’s not), that this was causing fish to develop tumors and other weird growth in alarming numbers (nope), and that the Japanese government was covering it up.

The headline picture was a scary-looking fish that happens to be a very normal Wolffish, and the article had no citations whatever. The website’s other articles are about fish falling from the sky, Amazonian legends being true, ghosts, and alien landings. 

My friends in all these cases are smart people and are really able to have some good conversations about politics. But when they saw the right kind of outrageous story, some part of their brain said, “I really want this to be true!” and accepted it… and worse, passed it along to others, with the sanction of that person (“I shared this with you, so I’m telling you it’s probably true”). 

What I think is afoot here is a particularly vicious and ugly form of confirmation bias. If such satire or flat-out nonsense was being written about someone wearing our team colors, we would never suspect it to be true. There’s some evidence that we particularly want to believe outrageous tales when they provoke strong emotions in us: this may be why Rolling Stone published the false UVA story of rape despite many red flags, or why This American Life published Mike Daisey’s completely fabricated story of worker abuse at Foxconn.

This poses a problem for us: if we want certain things to be true, then we are at serious risk of embracing lies that are sent our way, because it feels good to reinforce the narrative we’ve built. We get such intense emotional pleasure–often in vindication, or outrage, or something else that causes a lot of dopamine secretion–out of having our narratives reinforced that there’s a part of our brain that does not care if it’s reality. Of course, whether we want a certain reality or another has no bearing on what we’re dealing with, politically: if our narrative is bogus, our policy ideas in response to that will be bogus. 

To learn more about this phenomenon, Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion is my go-to field guide. Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene and “How Politics Makes us Stupid” by Ezra Klein are also pretty good.

Before you say, “man, other people should really think about this,” challenge yourself: you’re probably guilty of this sometimes, just as others are. I am, too. You can’t improve others nearly as well as you can yourself, and if you ever intend to change peoples’ minds in the future, you’re going to need to learn to find the lies you’ve embraced, and exorcise them.

–Erik

32 Comments

  • Chris McAdam, February 19, 2016 @ 2:59 pm Reply

    We see everything through the lens of our own politics. The more polarized the lens, the narrower the view and the more biased our interpretation of what we read.

    Having no affiliation with any political organization can weaken that effect. Tends to make one short on political allies, of course, as you are more likely to see, and point out, the negatives in everyone.

  • Wade Lowry, February 20, 2016 @ 5:34 pm Reply

    I used to fall for posts like these when I wanted to believe them. However after the scotus ruling last summer pertaining to gay marriage I decided to plead the fifth no longer. Before that ruling if I saw a meme or status on social media and thought about rebutting its substance, after a few minutes of internal debate I would move on. I knew any comment would only cause an argument and make people angry and didnt want to take the risk. After that ruling though, as an informed citizen, I made a decision to sit back in silence no longer. I realized almost the minute I heard the ruling, social media allows any person an amazing tool. Any single person can pick any topic they choose and within seconds, information affirming their point of view can be sent to hundreds maybe even thousands of people. Upon that realization I made a decision to voice the truth whenever I see a lie. And be a voice in opposition whenever my view strongly differs from anothers.

    This article pertains to another change I made that day however. In addition to speaking out, I also decided to vet information before I share it on social media. I thought about pages sent to me in the past by friends and came to a shocking conclusion. Not only did the best hoaxes seem to stick in my memory, SO DID THE SENDER! After any hoax I found believable, I always subconsciously made a note of the friend who sent it my way after realizing the joke was on me.

     I guess possibly, I may be the only person storing things so trivial. My logic tells me im not alone though. Nobody enjoys being the fool, and after playing someones fool, I scrutinize everything from that source much harder.
    

    The best lesson ive learned since last june didnt come from being a fool though. During a lively debate I learned, above vetting information sent to you, and even stories you share yourself, always place emphasis on vetting any information or facts before using them to make a point while debating one on one. During a discussionof the second amendment I was bombarded with lies by someone who didnt check his facts. After providing information dispoving each lie he had presented while attempting to prove his point, the debate was basically over. The abrupt ending of this is back and forth proves the point I made earlier. Facts used during a debate MUST BE ACCURATE! If any statment used as fact is proven to be misrepresented while trying to prove your point it takes away from your argument, and most of all your credibility.

    • Chris McAdam, February 21, 2016 @ 3:40 am Reply

      I agree with you. I further believe there is a moral obligation to point out inaccuracies, especially when shared by friends. Either the person sharing it genuinely believes what they shared (and I hope and believe all my friends fall into this category) in which case they should be glad of any corrections, or they are propagandists, willfully trying to deceive people for the furtherance of their political agenda, in which case one is obliged to correct misinformation others might absorb.

  • Stever Robbins, February 22, 2016 @ 12:49 am Reply

    I’ve been trying to separate wishful thinking, honest misinformation, and explicit smear campaigns in deciding whether to support Hillary or Bernie in the Democratic primary. It’s become shockingly clear that without considering each meme, story, and post carefully, it’s far too easy simply to repost stuff that confirms our own point of view. It’s very pernicious; I’m finding that as I begin to develop a preference for one of the candidates, I suddenly start wanting to interpret articles in such a way as to support that preference. Being human is a bitch.

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