How lie detection kit can avoid the spread of fake news
Since Trump’s ban on immigration was enacted, numerous articles on the effect of this ban emerge. It turns out they were hoaxes. For example, a Fox News outlet in Detroit corrected a story of Mike Hager, a local man, said his mother died in Iraq after the ban. Well, she died before the ban. But even reporters, trained men who are supposed to be a credible source of information, tweeted these articles. The readers endorsed these fake information further by re-tweeting, spreading the news further.
These articles that utilize emotional appeal are profitable click bait. But what the articles take advantage the most is confirmation bias:
“ The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories” — Google Dictionary
Pre-existing beliefs that Trump’s ban has a negative impact have blurred the sense of reality. This fools the reporters and many of us into believing the news are true. New evidence that supports this bias = the death of the mother > proof that Trump ban is shittier.
Take the case of Trump. So far, he has been a lousy president, electing Pruitt, a guy that opposes the claim made against climate change. Trump paves way for coal to be dumped into streams. While he is making major mistakes, a chunk of the population is simply jumping on the bandwagon of hating everything he did without analyzing the meaning behind the actions/policies, and believing what the media outlet of their kinds. The reverse is true for any Trump supporters who blindly support him.
This bias that guides our decision, coupled with a blind trust in the authoritative figure like the media, or politicians, make us vulnerable to lies and deceptions. It’s pretty hard to have skills of doctors or engineers to know if there are bullshits in their claims. But we can process less technical info much easier with the baloney detection kit from Carl Sagan’s timeless classic The Demon Haunted World :
After reading 20 common pitfalls of common sense, I begin to see patterns, incorrect patterns in everyday lives. For example, number 5, “appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proven false must be true, and vice versa” resonates with the fake news problems. What is not proven wrong, like the story of the Muslim man in Detroit, must be true? Wrong. ‘Post hoc”: It happens after so it was caused by. In this case, the death of the mother occurred after the ban. So the ban killed her. Wrong.
Besides using the kit, we should wait until the information is proven by an independent source. The ability to discern truth from falseness is pretty important because whoever holds the correct information is advantageous.
